


The Blessing and the Beast

by Caelice



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Family, Gen, Horror, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, Hurt/Comfort, Monsters, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sibling Bonding, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 06:40:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28347009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caelice/pseuds/Caelice
Summary: Five has been training every day to master his powers, and he’s ready to time travel.Only he miscalculates. Instead of landing in the future, he lands in the dimension that exists in between his jumps. A dimension filled with darkness, horror and a tentacled monster that he’s never seen fully before, but that he knows all too well.A monster that lives inside his brother, Ben.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Ben Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) & Everyone
Comments: 153
Kudos: 305
Collections: Hosted by Elliott's House: The Great Year End Fuck 2020 TUA Fandom Bang!





	1. The Blunder

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the TUA Fandom Bang 2020 (check the Collections).
> 
> My prompt words were 'train, burden' - I took 'train' more as a verb than a noun (mainly because I couldn't figure out how to shoe-horn a damn train into a story), with it applying to the kids training their powers, while for burden I wanted to expand on how their powers can be a burden more than a blessing in some cases. Some are more obvious like Klaus and Ben who hate their powers, whereas Five would only ever have seen his powers as a huge bonus up until the point they turned on him.
> 
> This is a bit of a horror story, with a few elements inspired by Lovecraftian/Eldritch horror and a little bit of Stranger Things (purely by accident).
> 
> The story takes place before Five ever made his time travel jump and diverges from there. Hope you enjoy!

The Hargreeves household treated birthdays like almost any other day of the year, with a few small exceptions.

Reginald did not acknowledge their birthday in any way, although he would begrudgingly allow them to have the day off from training to do what they wished, as long as they stayed within the confines of the Academy. This was given with a caveat that training would be twice as tough the following day to make up for ‘time wasted on frivolities’.

Grace, on the other hand, did what she could do make the day special for them. She would bake them a large cake with seven candles to share after dinner, once their father had left the table to retire to his office.

On their thirteenth birthday, she also found a way to give them each a little gift, something small for their room which their father wouldn’t find and potentially discard.

Reginald strictly prohibited any form of gift-giving unless it was as a reward for progression in their training, however Grace had somehow found a loophole around this restriction. She had presented them each with a small token, which had delighted the children.

Luther received a small moon shaped night light, because he wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up. Diego received a knife with his name engraved on it.

Both Allison and Klaus had received their own nail polish set, which they had giggled over while promising to test on each other.

Ben had been gifted with a brand new paperback copy of short stories by Anton Chekhov, while Vanya received an Intermediate level violin book with new songs for her to practice.

While the others had eagerly opened their presents straight away, Five kept his tucked under his arm. Even when Diego had called him a spoilsport for not sharing, he had refused to open it.

He knew that Grace couldn’t give him the one thing he wanted. That was something only he could achieve, through hard work and training.

Five wanted to time travel.

He wasn’t quite ready yet, but he would be soon. He just needed a bit more time, a bit more training, and he would be able to throw himself into any time of his choosing.

He could feel it, even if Reginald disagreed with him at every step.

Later when he retreated back to his room, he sat down on his bed and picked up the present Grace had given him. With mild curiosity, he had unwrapped it carefully and found himself staring at a book.

He had never heard of it before, but even by just reading the title he could tell Grace had clearly been listening to his arguments with Reginald during their training sessions.

Thumbing through the pages, he opened it and began to read his new copy of _The Time Machine_ by H.G. Wells.

* * *

It was another day, another dangerous mission, and another petty argument between the Hargreeves siblings.

The location had been a warehouse along the river where a drug deal was taking place, and the Umbrella Academy had gotten the jump on the dealers.

While the main group had been taken care of, Five had ignored Luther’s orders. He taken it upon himself to blink into the getaway vehicle and subdue the criminals who were driving away with two million dollars worth of cocaine.

He had received a bloody nose and split lip for his efforts, however had emerged from the car victorious. Within seconds policemen were swarming around to arrest the two unconscious drug dealers.

Five knew that Luther was furious with him even before he had even gotten out of the car, and when he was close enough to see Luther’s reddened face he steeled himself for a lecture.

“What the hell was that, Five?” Luther demanded, gesturing angrily towards the car.

Five crossed his arms. “A job well done.”

“You ignored me on purpose! We’re supposed to work as a team!”

“Your orders didn’t even make sense. The bad guys would have gotten away if-”

“Guys!” Allison hissed, grabbing Luther’s arms and tugging him away. “ _Not_ in front of the cameras. Dad will kill us if the press figure out we’re fighting.”

She forced Luther to move by her side, which he did so reluctantly while shooting daggers at Five. His face melted into one of false pride as the media started to swarm in.

Five was shoved in between Diego and Klaus, the former who looked equally as irritated with him while the latter was waving grandiosely to the cameras.

Klaus put an arm around his shoulder and shook him playfully. He knew that Five wouldn’t dare shrug him off in front of the cameras, not when their father could be somewhere in the area watching.

“Get off me, Klaus,” Five grumbled through gritted teeth.

“Play nice, bro, you know Dad’s watching,” Klaus said smirking. Excited passers by had also begun to surround the area, having noticed the Umbrella Academy members standing at the crime scene. “Luther’s gonna be sulking all evening now because you went against his orders.”

“You could have w-w-w-waited for us,” Diego said, sliding his knives back into his belt and adjusting them. Five simply ignored him, plastering a fake smirk onto his face as the cameras began flashing. “You’re such a show off.”

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Five retorted. “I saw what you were doing before. Back flip much?”

Diego scowled. “You’re just jealous you can’t do it.”

“I’m _not_ jealous.”

It was a lie, he was a little bit jealous. Five’s ability to control his powers were superior to Diego’s, but Diego outmatched him in almost every physical test of skill. He had recently learned how to do a back flip before any of his siblings and took every opportunity to use it in their trainings and on mission.

If Five didn’t cheat, he would never win a single race against Diego.

What did it matter anyway? He would always have his powers to rely on.

* * *

_Whoosh_.

Five stood at the bottom of the stairs, where he had just teleported. He clenched his fists, drawing in energy around them.

_Whoosh._

He was on the fifth step.

_Whoosh._

Back to the bottom of the stairs. Again.

_Whoosh._

Now he was on the tenth step, legs trembling slightly.

 _Whoosh_.

Bottom of the stairs again, sweat dripping down the side of his temple. He brushed it away impatiently.

_Whoosh._

Fifteenth step. Now he was on the next set of stairs, facing the windows instead of the door. That had been difficult. He felt an ache settling into his muscles, but he wasn’t done yet.

_Whoosh._

Bottom of the stairs. His knees were shaking, but he knew he could do one more.

 _Whoosh_.

He landed on the twentieth step, _hard_ , and his legs buckled underneath him. He barely had enough time to put out his hands before he went tumbling down the stairs, head knocking against the steps and body rolling until he crashed at the bottom in a pained heap.

Groaning, he rolled over until he was facing the ceiling, his back and ribs creaking in protest.

He shouldn’t have attempted that last jump. That had been a mistake.

“Five! Are you alright?”

“Yeah, holy crap, man! You alive?”

Five looked down to see both Ben and Klaus standing at the entryway, staring at him with wide eyes as they took in his position on the floor. He quickly pushed himself up, embarrassed at having been caught making such an avoidable mistake, and schooled his face into an expression of disdain.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just overexerted myself.”

He walked down the stairs until he was facing them, only then noticing what they were both holding ice cream cones which were half eaten. Ben’s was tucked neatly into its napkin, while Klaus’ had melted and was dripping down his cone and onto his fingers.

He didn’t seem to have noticed, still fixated on looking over Five as he limped down towards them.

“You sure you didn’t break anything? ‘Cause that sounded like it hurt _-_ ”

“It’s just a few bruises, it’ll heal.” Five was eager for them to move on from his embarrassing mishap. “Where did you even get those? Dad doesn’t allow ice cream in the house.”

Klaus grinned, wide and mischievous. “Oh, we know he doesn’t. But I was complaining that we never did anything special to celebrate our birthdays last month, so Ben suggested that we sneak out to get ice cream.”

Five raised his eyebrows at Ben, surprised by this revelation. Ben was usually the most rule abiding one out of all of them, bar Luther.

He was granted with a sheepish yet proud grin from Ben, although he looked slightly anxious at having been caught out.

“You won’t tell anyone, will you? We wanted to ask you guys but we were worried that Dad might notice if more of us were missing."

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Five reassured, somewhat envious of them having been able to get late night treats. He reminded himself to make a peanut butter marshmallow sandwich before heading to bed.

“We did get you guys some other treats though.”

Ben produced candy bars from his pocket, offering one to Five who took it eagerly and opened the wrapping. He was never one to turn down a sweet treat.

“Aww, Ben, I thought we were going to keep those a secret,” Klaus complained, reluctantly pulling out more treats from his pocket. “I wanted to add it to my secret stash.”

“I never said that, you did. And anyway, it was all of our birthdays, so we should all get a chance to celebrate,” Ben said, giving him a reproachful look.

Five crumpled up the wrapping paper, having finished eating the bar within seconds. “Can I get one to give to Vanya?”

Ben dutifully gave him another treat, which he pocketed with a quick _thank you_.

“Not one for Luther or Allison?” Klaus said mockingly.

Five rolled his eyes and refused to dignify that with a response. Luther had refused to speak to him at all since yesterday, after that warehouse mission, and Allison had joined him in being annoyed with Five for ‘ _being mean to Luther_ _’_.

He turned and walked until he was at the bottom of the stairs again, gearing himself up to start all over again.

Even though his body was still aching from the fall and he was pretty sure he had hit his head on the way down, he still had another thirty minutes of training to do.

He had a goal in mind, and he wasn’t going to reach it if he didn’t commit.

The other two went to sit down on the bottom steps and began conversing quietly as Five restarted his training, laughing and finishing their ice creams.

_Whoosh._

_Whoosh_.

“Five?”

“ _What_?” he snapped, turning to glare at Klaus. He was irritated at the interruption, but mostly at himself. Only two jumps and he was already panting from exertion already.

“What are you doing?” Klaus asked, unconcerned by his brusque tone.

“I’m training. Isn’t it obvious?”

“Yeah, but…why? Dad’s not here right now.”

Five rolled his eyes. He wouldn’t expect Klaus to understand, considering how resistant his brother was to anything that took effort and hard work. Klaus hated training, hated doing anything with their powers, and from what Five could see, had been taking greats pains to numb himself up with weed the past few months.

Ever since he’d broken his jaw and discovered that his powers didn’t work when hopped up on pain meds, he’d worked even harder to break away from any kind of training regimen that Reginald pushed on them.

Well, not Five. He was better than that.

He didn’t want to numb his powers, he wanted to refine them.

“I’m not doing this for Dad. I’m doing this for myself,” he said. “Dad says that if we want to master our powers we need to train ourselves.”

Klaus snorted in amusement. “Oh yeah, I remember him saying that.”

He got up to his feet and straightened his posture, mimicking holding a cane and glaring down at them with an authoritative air.

“The only way to master control of your powers, children, is to train to the very best of your abilities!” he barked in a truly terrible imitation of their father. “That, and that alone, is what will transform your power from a burden into a blessing! _Comprende?_ ”

Five couldn’t stop a burst of laughter escaping his lips, and he clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle it. Klaus looked beyond delighted to have caught his normally aloof brother off guard.

“Funny, I don’t remember him saying that last part,” he said dryly.

Klaus shrugged, grinning widely. “Eh, close enough.”

“Since when do you listen to Dad anyway?” Ben asked, brows furrowing.

It was a valid question.

Five was becoming more and more openly defiant each and every day, constantly questioning Reginald in front of the others even after their father commanded him to ‘ _know his place_ _’_.

It didn’t stop him though. He was getting bolder, and braver, and he _knew_ that Reginald was underestimating him.

“I listen to him sometimes,” he said. “When I think he’s right. And he’s right about training.”

“I don’t get it, man,” Klaus sighed, leaning back and reaching into his pocket to dig out a small bag of weed. Five wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I mean, you’re already better than the rest of us at using your powers. If anything you should be coasting, chilling out.”

“I agree with Klaus,” Ben said, nodding in agreement. “You could be doing anything else right now, with how far ahead of the rest of us you are. You don’t need to train anymore than you have to.”

“Of course you’d both think that. You hate your powers,” Five shot back. “If I had a power like either of yours, I would be training ten times as much.”

Klaus snorted. “If you had powers like ours, you would know why we avoid it as much as possible.”

“I hate my power,” Ben grumbled, downtrodden. “I wish the monster never existed.”

“Same here, _hermano_ ,” Klaus said, nodding.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree,” Five said. He knew that it wouldn’t do any good to argue further. “I need to train if I want to get better at my powers.”

“You mean, if you want to _time travel_ ,” Klaus said knowingly. Five stared at him, taken aback. He didn’t think that Klaus had ever been paying attention to his recent fights with Reginald, considering how high he was all the time lately. “Don’t look at me like that. You haven’t shut up about it for months.”

“I didn’t realize you’d noticed,” he admitted.

“Well, I have, and I know that Dad sure as hell doesn’t think you’re ready to time travel anytime soon.”

Five bristled “Well, he’s wrong. I’m more than ready, and I’m going to do it.”

Klaus simply shrugged, looking indifferent.

“Hey man, it’s your funeral,” he said, standing up from where he was sitting. “Ben and I are going outside to play with the others. Want to join?”

“No thanks, I’m good. I need to keep training.”

They bid him farewell, leaving without a glance back as he began to teleport up and down the stairs again. He didn’t spare them a glance either, once again focused on his goal.

Fists clenched in front of him, he blinked.

* * *

“I _want_ to time travel.”

Five could feel it simmering in his bones. That itch that was spreading across his skin, that deep curiosity that had kept him awake at night for months on end.

He had been so patient, so dedicated to perfecting his abilities. He had trained just like his father had told him, more than anyone else in the family.

“ _No_.”

That word he had been hearing from his father for the past few months, always in that same tone, with that very same lack of hesitation.

He didn’t care that his siblings were sending him awkward glances from across the table, or that Reginald had barely looked up from his meal to respond to him. He was doing this here and now, regardless of what they thought.

“But I’m ready. I’ve been practicing my spatial jumps, just like you said.” He blinked until he was next to Reginald, glaring down at him with determination. “See?”

“A spatial jump is trivial when compared with the unknowns of time travel. One is like sliding along the ice, the other is akin to descending blindly into the depths of the freezing water and reappearing as an acorn.”

“Well I don’t get it,” Five muttered.

“Hence the reason you’re not ready.” Reginald set his wine glass onto the table.

He looked down the table to see Vanya shaking her head fearfully, begging him to just let it go. For a moment he considered it, but then the moment was gone.

“I’m not _afraid_.”

“Fear isn’t the issue. The effects it might have on your body, even on your mind, are far too unpredictable. Now, I forbid you to talk about this anymore.” Reginald dropped his cutlery, for the first time turning to stare at Five with that same authoritative glare he used whenever Five was defying him.

Only for a moment, before returning back to his meal as if they had never spoken, as if Five were nothing more than an annoyance.

The sight of it infuriated Five, rubbed at his pride in all the wrongs ways and made something spark inside of him.

He would _make_ Reginald listen to him.

He turned, storming out of there and ignoring the distant sound of his father barking his name. He pushed through the front doors and strode down the street feeling nothing but confidence.

Around him people were walking past, unaware of what he was about to accomplish.

It was in his fingers, the powers surging through him, just waiting to be used, and he didn’t need _anyone_ _’s_ permission to use it.

Five clenched his fists, focused his mind, and drew in the familiar power into his hands until the blue was crackling around his hands.

He _pushed_.

Blue warped around him. Time stopped, stuttered.

He knew instantly that he had miscalculated.

* * *

The world was dark and different in front of him. Where he had been walking down the street only a second ago, he was now on muddy, slippery soil covered in sharpened vines.

Five tried to retreat, but he lost his footing and went tumbling forward. He crashed against rocks and branches and thorns which snagged onto his blazer and skin, cutting him as he went and stinging his palms.

He stayed there for a few moments, breathing heavily and digging his sore fingers into the slimy black soil underneath. Above him, a steady shower of rain soaked into his clothes.

It was bitterly cold, unrelentingly so, both the ground and the wind around him.

When his breathing had finally slowed, he braved a look around himself, and wished he hadn’t.

He knew instantly this wasn’t his world.

It was dreary and dark, grey clouds blanketing the land as far as the eye could see, and not a single ray of sunshine peeking through. Instead any light was emanating from cracks in the ground and soil in a greenish pulsating glow. There was no live greenery to be seen, only blackened trees and vines criss crossing over the flat ground that reached towards the horizon in black waves.

The rain was falling in steady droplets, light and sharp and drenching the ground enough to leave a thin layer of moisture.

Around him were building lining the empty streets around him, broken and crumbling and somehow _alive_. They stood tall and dark and ominous, covered in pulsating plant-like entities with only the green glow emanating from inside.

Five stood up slowly, his knees trembling as he took in his surroundings.

There was no one else in the vicinity, at least not as far as his eyes could see. He was alone.

“Hello?” he called out, but no one responded. He tried to ignore how his voice trembled in fear. “Is anyone there?”

Silence.

He began to shiver, the cold seeping into his clothes and into his bones, and he wrapped his arms around himself.

He had miscalculated. Badly.

It was fine, he reasoned. He just needed to jump back. If he had jumped here, he could just as easily jump back.

He clenched his fists, drawing in the familiar energy into his fists and thinking, _desperately_ , of home.

Immediately he knew it wasn’t working. The blue energy fizzled out within seconds, and left him standing there.

“Come on. _Come on!_ ” he cried through gritted teeth, trying again and again. When he realized it wasn’t going to work, he dropped his hands in defeat. “Shit…”

Fear began to trickle through him as he realized he was stuck.

In the quiet of his surroundings, he thought he could hear a soft clicking sound.

It was faint, but it was coming closer and closer with every second. He looked up to find the source, and squinted his eyes as he saw a figure in the distance. A person stumbling towards him, but also not quite a person.

Its naked body was humanoid, with grotesquely long arms and wiry legs, and huge white eyes with no pupils, and a mouth looked like an open flower of razor sharp teeth lining its petaled skin.

“What the fuck…” he breathed, terror clamping around his heart.

It stopped, facing him only a few feet away and looking at him. At least, he thought it was; it had no pupils that he could see.

It clicked softly, curiously, tilting its head as if to study him, and he did the same in kind. For a moment they stayed locked in a strange standoff.

It charged, sprinting towards him on sinewy legs, so quick and sudden that Five thought he blinked and it was halfway to him.

He screamed, terror racing through his veins. A burst of adrenaline forced his legs to move and he raced away as fast as they could carry him, leaping over vines and slipping across the muddy ground.

He could hear its quick and long strides behind him, and the _clicking_ was growing closer and closer despite the fact that he was running at full speed.

Blood was rushing through his ears as he tore down the street, and behind him the monster screeched loudly.

Five was too scared to spare a glance behind him, but he he knew that at this rate it wouldn’t be long before it caught up to him.

He took a chance, turning and bursting through the open door of what looked like an abandoned department store with a large ‘GIMBELS’ sign over the entrance.

Immediately he could see that it was a jungle of black vines, broken glass and destroyed shops inside. The store was _rotten_ somehow, and every single storefront had been shattered and the insides of the store cleaned out. Corpses littered the place, although none of them were human. Instead they looked similar to the beast that was giving him chase, leathery skinned and gifted with thousands of sharp teeth.

Five nearly stopped in horror at the sight, however the sound of the monster sliding in behind him gave him another burst of strength.

He turned around and wished he hadn’t, seeing it clambering over the corpses and screeching at him a vision that he would never forget. If he lived long enough for it to matter.

He ran up the escalator, tripping over thorny vines and cutting into his clothes and skin. He could feels his palms becoming slippery with blood, but he was numb to the pain in his desperation to get away.

As he reached the top of the escalator, he was greeted with another terrible sight.

Ahead of him was a hulking shape, huge and monstrous, something resembling a panther with rippling muscles and clawed feet. It hadn’t noticed him, its grinning toothy mouth devouring the rotting corpse of another beast with fervor as its slitted eyes darted around frantically.

They landed on him, and Five froze unwillingly.

Slowly, the beast detached from the corpse and turned to face him, its horrifying mouth grinning from ear to ear as a long, leathery tongue hung down to the ground.

Behind him, he heard the other creature scrambling to reach him.

The panther beast launched forward and Five was unable to move.

 _This is it_ , he thought. _This is how I die_.

He could only hear his father saying ‘ _I told you so_ _’_ , see the worried look on Vanya’s face as he had stormed out, and he shook with regret.

The beast leapt over Five completely, clashing with the creature behind him and sending them tumbling down the escalator in a terrible cacophony of screeching and thuds. They tore and bit at each other, and Five could only watch in stunned shock as they fought to the death in a bloody mess of flesh and teeth, until finally the four-legged beast was victorious.

It began to feed on the body of its prey, and Five took that as his cue to leave.

He wandered around the department store carefully, on high alert for any other creatures which might attack him. He could feel the sweat drenching his clothes, and the dried blood feeling tight on his skin. Now that he wasn’t running for his life, the stinging from the scratches and cuts all over him were beginning to feel like acid on his skin.

After almost a half hour of searching, he found a small storage cupboard. Inside were a few items such as mops, buckets and cleaning rags. There was also a scuffed up mannequin with a polka dot blouse and a perpetual smile.

In the top right corner was some sort of pulsating mass of black and glowing green, which almost seemed to be breathing. It worried him, but it also provided a source of light in this small cupboard.

He didn’t want to go in, as it reminded him too much of when Reginald would lock him in a confined space for his ‘special training’ and order him to blink himself out.

He knew that he had no choice though.

This would be ten times safer than sitting out in the open where the other beasts were.

As he locked the door of the cupboard behind him and settled in, he suddenly couldn’t help but be brought back to his ‘special training’ sessions with his father.

How terrifying that had seemed before, and how small it seemed now in comparison. He would do anything to be trapped back in that closet, scared but with the knowledge that his family was waiting outside for him once he escaped.

He brought his fists up once again, hoping that maybe now he could bring himself back home.

“You can do this,” he muttered, almost as if pleading with himself. “You just have to focus.”

He pulled on that energy again, as hard as he could, almost enough to feel something popping painfully in his skull and his fingers.

This time the blue barely even encompassed his fist, and when it fizzled out pathetically he was still sitting in the same place.

He wasn’t sure when the tears had started, but they didn’t stop for a very long time.

* * *

When he woke up the next day, it took him several hours to brave venturing outside again, and it was only because he was desperately in need of the restroom.

There were no other creatures wandering around the wall that he could see, however he kept a baseball bat that he’d found in a store by his side as he wandered. He jumped in fright at every sound, whirling around like a madman and brandishing his bat ready to attack.

He was starving, so he braved the basement of the department store and was happy to find a small food supermarket with canned goods, sweets and other edible assortments. Although a number of them had been rotted through from the vines, some looked good enough for him to eat.

He helped himself to salted peanuts and a bottle of lemonade, guzzling down the lukewarm drink with the enthusiasm of a man starved in the desert.

When he left the store feeling satisfied, he caught a glimpse of some arachnid like creature, twice the size he was, slowly making its way down the far wall.

It picked up one of the corpses and slowly began to carry it up to its web, a web that he hadn’t noticed when he had been wandering around. It covered a huge portion of the department store’s skylight, and he hadn’t even seen it.

He ran back to his storage cupboard, locking himself in and unwilling to leave for the rest of the day.

He tried multiple times to teleport again and again until his palms started bleeding again from the nails digging into the wounds so much.

The hours turned into days.

The days turned into weeks.

Some days he encountered nothing else, but others he wasn’t so lucky.

During one of his ventures a two headed, long clawed beast had found him leaving the supermarket and chased him across the store. The hooked claws had caught onto his blazer jacket and left long tears down his back, but he had managed to escape when the arachnid creature had pounced on it.

Five was fortunate that the creatures seemed as hostile towards each other as they were to him, and the larger ones were happy to ignore him if there was something bigger available.

He had braved going to the supermarket again, but found it suddenly teeming with insects the sizes of his hands. A giant group of them moving as one and razing through the tins and packages and shelves, leaving nothing but dust in their wake.

He had left before they could see him, and had spent the night in the storage cupboard hungry and scared.

When he had ventured out a while later to a chocolate shop he had passed a little while ago, he had made the mistake of carelessly looking through an already opened box of chocolates.

A small, venomous looking lizard creature had launched out of the box and clamped onto his collarbone, sending a thunderbolt of pain across his body agonizing enough to make him scream.

He had ripped it off instantly, but the puncture wound in his skin had continued to burn white hot and eventually it had swelled up to the size of a slug, red and throbbing.

It was painful enough to make him cry for hours on end, and he had laid on the ground of the storage cupboard shaking and scratching at the area around the wound until it bled.

On that day more than ever, he wanted to be back home.

For the first time since arriving, he had missed Grace even more than his siblings. He had missed her gentle touch, how she would make him chicken soup when he was sick and fuss over him with special attention until he got better.

Those few days had been a dark time for him, and when the pain finally subsided he was left weak and miserable.

He had picked himself up and forced himself out of his cupboard, knowing that if he didn’t he wouldn’t survive much longer.

Sometimes he didn’t even need to leave the cupboard to feel like he was in danger.

During one of the days where he hadn’t encountered anything for a little while, just as he had been about to leave, he heard scraping against the door and froze in terror.

The handle jiggled slightly, as if someone, or _something,_ were trying to turn it.

He held his breath, holding the mannequin to him tightly while his heart thundered in his chest and his breathing became shallow from terror.

The jiggling continued for two days and he stayed in there, growing weak with hunger and thirst. Every time he thought that whatever it was might be gone, the handle moved again and he would spend another hour short of breath and holding back his terrified gasps.

No matter how much he willed it, his powers wouldn’t respond.

Finally, his thirst overcame his fear.

He was desperate for something to drink, something to eat, and the handle hadn’t moved for hours.

With trembling fingers he opened the door, waiting for whatever horrible beast was waiting for him to pounce in terror.

There was nothing there.

* * *

“So Luther, that’s Number One, he was angry with me because I disobeyed his orders,” Five said, taking a sip from the whiskey bottle in his hand. “Which meant he was sulking all night, and also the next morning.”

He put down the whiskey, opening his Vitamin D bottle and shaking a few of the remaining pills into his hand. He had taken the chance to leave Gimbel’s for the first time since arriving, sneaking out to a nearby pharmacy for some vitamins which he sorely needed.

He was starting to feel a never ending fatigue from being trapped in this world, basically in this damn storage cupboard, without any sunlight. There were no days or nights, which meant that his sleep schedule was inexistent and he found himself constantly exhausted.

He popped the vitamin D pills into his mouth, drinking the whiskey to help him swallow. His throat was particularly dry that day from all the talking.

His captive audience, the mannequin named Dolores, waited patiently for him to resume his story.

“Of course, since _Luther_ was ignoring me, that meant that _Allison_ was also ignoring me. They’re practically attached at the hip most days.”

He threw the pill bottle to the other side of the room with more force than necessary, before hugging the whiskey to his chest.

He wasn’t quite drunk, but he was getting there.

“Whatever. I didn’t need them anyway, I know I was _right_. I’m always right. I was the best out of all of them, and they knew it. That’s why Luther and Diego always wanted to…to pick a fight with me. They couldn’t stand that I was better than they were with my powers. They always wanted to be Dad’s _favorite_. ”

He scoffed, suddenly feeling the warmth of angry tears running down his cheeks. He reached up to brush them away angrily, ignoring the way it stung at the cuts on his cheek.

He had fallen on some glass just that morning in his haste to get away from a massive, snake like creature which he had found slumbering on the top floor. Removing the pieces of glass in the dark without a mirror to help had been a tough job, and even now he wasn’t sure he’d been entirely successful.

“I bet they don’t even miss me,” he muttered bitterly. “They probably don’t even think about where I am, or even care. Probably glad that I’m gone…assholes.”

He hiccuped, unable to stop a shaky breath from escaping his lips.

“Vanya probably misses me…although she’s probably still mad that I ignored her that day. She was trying to warn me not to keep pushing, but I didn’t listen. You know, ‘cause I’m a goddamn _idiot_ who wanted to _goddamn time travel._ ”

Jesus, why did people even drink alcohol? It just made him feel stupid and emotional.

“I spoke to Ben and Klaus that evening as well, Dolores,” he said, reaching out to hold her hand. It was comforting, feeling her cold fingers against his own. "They were…they were talking about how much they hated their powers and I just… _didn_ _’t get it_. I just couldn’t get how they could hate the very thing which made us special.”

He took another swig of whiskey, grimacing at the disgusting taste. He couldn’t believe that people actually drank this for fun.

“Guess the joke’s on me now, isn’t it?”

He laughed humorlessly and harshly, in a way that made Dolores flinch.

She wasn’t speaking to him just yet, because he hadn’t gone quite that mad, but some days he felt like she was on the brink of answering him.

The dark thoughts were coming to him more often the longer he spent in this dark room without sunlight. The only light within the room came from the pulsating mass in the corner of the ceiling which glowed green occasionally, but other than that it was pitch black.

He felt he was going insane.

He was forming a theory in his mind, one that he had yet to confirm but which made sense to him.

This world, the hell which he was trapped in, was somehow familiar to him. He hadn’t been sure why, but the more he thought about it the more it made sense.

He had assumed that when he jumped spatially or temporally, he simply created a rip in space and time and traveled into one and out the other. He had never given a thought as to what was _between_ those jumps.

 _Well_ , he thought bitterly. _Now I know._

* * *

Five marked six weeks in this new world by leaving behind the department store and the storage cupboard where he’d sought refuge this entire time.

The pulsating black mass in the far corner had started to grow at an alarming rate, and had begun to release a smell which he suspected was poisonous in large doses, because he had found himself growing dizzy when he woke up from his sleep.

The days he had tallied in on the wall of the storage cupboard were a stark reminder of how long he had spent in this hellish world.

The fear that he might never go back began to creep into his brain like a parasite.

He couldn’t spend his days locked in a storage cupboard with this mysterious, potentially toxic sludge, no matter how much safer it felt than being outside in the open, so he scrounged up the little courage he had and wandered outside.

He had wanted to take Dolores with him, but reluctantly figured that carrying her around would only slow him down if he encountered any creatures.

He had left the department store armed with a new change of clothes, as his old ones had stunk of weeks worth of greasiness and sweat, and with an ax that he had found in the basement.

He walked out onto the street, footsteps silent and body tensed.

The streets were empty, quiet except for the pulsating which seem to run through the ground and the vines. Some of them started to snake around his ankles as he walked, but he shook them off with relative ease.

They were weak and slow and easy to dodge, but he knew better than to fall asleep out in the open.

He had seen snoozing monsters littered on the ground succumbing to the vines while they slumbered. They would wake up thrashing and howling, but the vines would feed on their flesh and slowly devour them until there was nothing left but skeletal remains.

Five had no desire to die such a gruesome death, thank you very much.

He wandered in and out of buildings, finding no shortage of supplies and things to do, hiding from monsters and finding himself becoming more and more familiar with his surroundings.

It only took him a day to realize that he was in some sort of universe parallel to his own.

The buildings and street were familiar to him, and it was only once he passed by a _Griddy_ _’s Doughnuts_ with a flickering sign that he was sure of it.

He should have realized sooner, however he and his siblings had rarely been let out of the Academy so in actual fact he had little knowledge of the city he had grown up in, except for when he had seen it during missions or sneaked out with his siblings.

Unable to deny the lure of nostalgia, he decided to enter the Griddy’s, ignoring the tell tale signs of danger.

That was a mistake on his part, although he didn’t realize it until later.

“Holy _shit_ ,” he muttered when he entered the shop.

It looked exactly like the Griddy’s from his own world, only it was run down and grimy and _covered_ in vines and slime. Deep scratches marred all of the walls and the furniture was completely upturned. As he approached the counter, he could see that a massive section of the counter top had been melted in.

It was strange, but he was too busy climbing over the counter to see whether there were any doughnuts on the rack to care.

He was disappointed to find only half-rotten, half-eaten bits of doughnut left in pieces scattered on the floor, with maggots crawling all over the place.

The sight was nauseating, and he forced himself to look away before it tainted his good memories of this place.

This wasn’t the Griddy’s he would sneak out to with this siblings to stuff themselves full of doughnuts and milkshakes. This wasn’t the Griddy’s where Diego and Luther had had a speed eating competition, while the others had watched and placed bets to see who could win.

This wasn’t the Griddy’s he knew.

He slid over the counter again, and when he landed on the floor he felt something move underneath him. Looking down he realized that he had landed on something warm, hard and very much _alive._ The lizard like beast turn to stare at him with a single yellow eyes, and snarled to reveal a row of bloodied, razor sharp teeth.

“Oh f-“

The beast clamped on his calf, teeth digging into his skin until blood gushed out of the wound. He screamed as his leg lit up in pure agony, jumping back and trying to wrench it out of the monster’s grasp.

It clenched harder, hard enough that he was sure it was biting into his bones and his vision nearly whited out from the sheer pain.

He swung the axe he was holding, slamming the edge of the weapon straight into the eye of the beast with all of the strength he had. It screeched and let go of him immediately, scrambling backwards and writhing in pain. He fell back, letting go of the axe which remained embedded in the beast’s eye.

He didn’t bother following it, limping away as quickly as he could and rushing out of Griddy’s before it could come back to get him.

He ran down the street, every step alighting his leg with an unbearable fire. He didn’t dare look down at the wound, knowing that if he did it would only hurt worse.

By the time he scrambled into the back of a van parked along the street, he was panting and feeling like his lungs were going to explode. He crawled into the corner, closing the van door behind him, and collapsed against the seat.

The light streaming in through the windshield was enough to illuminate the blood drenching his torn socks, and with dread he realized that he was going to have to deal with his mangled calf sooner rather than later.

It took almost ten minutes of hyperventilating and several deep breaths before he was able to peel his socks down his leg with shaking fingers, and when he was finally able to see the mangled flesh and the white of bone he nearly passed out.

The pain was unbearable, and he didn’t have anything to treat the wound or even dress it, only a few semi-clean rags from inside the van. With shaky fingers he began to tie them around his leg, a sob burst through his lips as it the pain of it became almost unbearable. Once it started he couldn’t stop, gasping for breath, tears running down his face.

“I can’t do this,” he whispered, burying his face into his bloody hands. “Please… _somebody_ …I don’t want to do this anymore.”

He thought of his brothers and sisters.

He thought of home.

* * *

His leg was going to get infected. There was no doubt about it, it was only a matter of time.

He needed to get to the Academy.

If this was a parallel universe, then potentially there were enough antibiotics in the infirmary that could help him stave off the infection and not eventually die a horrible death.

His journey to the Academy was slow going, marred by shooting pains up and down his leg, and the need to duck into every possible hiding space whenever he saw movement.

By sheer luck, he encountered no other creatures during his travels and when he finally reached the Academy it was a reunion that nearly brought him to tears.

The sight of it, blackened, crumbling and overgrown with plants and creepers that had forced their way through the cracks in the brick, was bittersweet. He knew he would not find his family inside, but he remained desperate to ensconce himself within the familiar walls of his home so in that moment it didn’t really matter.

On the main street he could hear some sort of monstrous clash occurring, so he opted to climb up the fire escape rather than go through the front entrance.

The moment he climbed into his bedroom, he was hit with a wave of grief powerful enough to make him collapse onto the bed. He curled up on it, ignoring the slight dampness of the sheets and the smell of something rotting in the corners. The walls were covered with thick, pulsating spore like entities that he knew better than to touch, but it was still _his_ room and that was what mattered.

This was the room where he had listened to Vanya play her violin, when she was eager to show him a new song he had practiced. This was the room where he and Ben would sit reading their books in a comfortable silence. He knew this room, and it was the closest he could be to home right now.

He brought his fists up in front of his face, drawing in the familiar feeling that he had almost everyday now.

The blue energy held for a second, stronger than he’d seen it in his entire time here, before fizzling out again.

“Huh,” he muttered, frowning slightly. “That was weird.”

He let his hands fall to his sides, staring up at the familiar ceiling and allowing himself to indulge in the familiarity of it all. If he closed his eyes and ignored the smell, he could almost pretend he was home.

Within moments, he succumbed to sleep.

* * *

Five was awoken by the sound of screaming.

It wasn’t unusual to hear screeching and roaring and warbling sounds during the night, sometimes as the result of some monster scuffle happening out in the streets or a predator beast launching itself onto another hapless creature.

He had often found himself awoken by the sound of monsters outside feasting on their live prey, unable to sleep through the revolting sounds of chewing, crunching and screaming until finally he would be left in silence.

This, however, was different.

He could hear screams. Unmistakably _human_ screams _._

Without hesitation, he launched himself out of bed and went running down the hall to the source of the noise. His heartbeat was racing in his chest as he ran towards the main entrance, something akin to hope bursting through him. As he slammed into the balustrade and nearly rolled right over it, he heard something which made his heart stop.

“ _Ben, behind you! Watch out!_ _”_

Diego.

That was Diego’s voice.

Five nearly sobbed with relief. Never in the history of his life had hearing Diego’s voice ever brought him so much joy, but in that moment it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

He rushed over to the stairs, clambering down taking two steps at a time before turning around towards the main entrance.

He was so overcome with excitement that he paid no attention to what was in front of him, and it was only because he slipped on a bit of slime and nearly fell that he was able to take in the scene.

Time seemed to stop, and he thought he might be dreaming.

In the entrance hall he could see a monster; a tentacled beast that was practically embedded into the walls by its multiple limbs, wrapped around the furniture and the twined into the floorboards. In between the tentacles were a number of eyes blinking constantly, and a gaping maw of a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth.

It was a hideous sight to behold, but Five wasn’t paying it as much attention as he should, because beyond the monster on what should have been the entrance to the living room he could see a glowing blue portal.

A number of the beast’s tentacles had pushed through the portal while writhing, and through glimpses he could see very clearly the world he had left behind.

He knew exactly what he was looking at; the monster that lived inside his brother, Ben.

The monster was straining against the edges of the portal, trying to force it open with all of its strength. The blue glowing edges were holding tight and flickering, although they seem to shudder under the strength of the beast.

Five felt something cold wash over him as he realized what it was trying to do.

It was trying to go through the portal.

After what seemed like less than a minute of screaming, the room on the other side of the portal descended into silence save for the screeching of the monster which reverberated off the walls.

As he watched, a glowing circle began to tighten around the monsters tentacles and the blue portal was becoming covered with a translucent blue, and the beast pulled its tentacles back from the quickly shrinking portal. He could see within the portal a familiar world, _his_ world, and a glimpse of the bodies left behind in the monster’s wake.

Then the portal was completely covered in a translucent blue screen. Although he could still somewhat see the pattern of Ben’s sweater vest, he couldn’t see past it. It was like a veiled curtain which was blocking the beast from reaching the outside world.

The beast settled back against the wall, its screams finally subsiding. Five was jerked out of his daze by the sudden change in tempo, and he ran.

Back up the stairs, back to his room, away from the hulking beast that he had only ever glimpsed emerging from his brother’s stomach.

He knew that if it saw him he would be toast.

Once he was safely in his room, he closed the door and took several minutes to calm down, gasping through his panicked state in an attempt to calm himself down.

Despite the sweat dripping down the back of his neck and his thundering heartbeat, he felt a flicker of hope for the first time in forever.

He had found a way home.

Sure, it was guarded by a gigantic tentacled beast that murdered everything in its path, and he had a gimp leg that was likely to get infected in the next few days without treatment, and he was completely weaponless and half-starved.

But it was still a flicker of hope, no matter how small or how impossible his objective might be to achieve.

Five was going home.


	2. The Beast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally finished my other fic, which means I can now focus on this one properly woohoo! Already it's shaping up to be longer than I thought, which is just classic me.  
> Thank you for all of your kind comments, I loved hearing that you enjoyed the concept of Ben's stomach monster world. Things get worse before they get better for Five unfortunately, but he just has to keep surviving. 
> 
> TW: graphic descriptions of violence, gore, depictions of shock, blood

The two inhabitants of the Academy mansion coexisted in peace, one without knowledge of its house mate, and the other in a constant state of heightened fear.

Within days of living in the Academy, Five had managed to garner two key facts about his oblivious host.

Firstly, the monster was transfixed upon the portal in Ben’s stomach; completely and utterly transfixed.

It never left the entrance hall, its many eyes constantly staring at the blue veil until the moment when Ben would once again ‘open’ his stomach. Then it would launch itself towards the portal with everything that it had, reaching through the opening as it screeched and thrashed wildly in a terrifying display of monstrous ability.

It was clear to Five that the beast was trying to force its way through the portal, however the edges never grew or gave way enough for it to fit its massive body through.

For that he was relieved, however a terrified part of him wondered whether it would only be a matter of time before it tore its way through, splitting his brother in half in the process.

He tried not to think about it. It meant that getting himself through the portal and back home would be significantly harder than he had originally hoped.

It was, however, a blessing in other ways.

Once he had realized that the monster never moved from its perch, he had the freedom to wander the halls of the Academy, checking each of his siblings’ rooms and roaming wherever he wished without fear of being caught.

Five cautiously enjoyed the familiarity of the mansion.

He missed his siblings more than anything in the world, and in the first few days he had picked up items from each of their rooms to bring back to his own.

He swiped the moon shaped night light from Luther’s room, even though there was no electricity in this world as far as he could see. Having it on his bedside table meant it was the first thing he would see every time he woke up.

Vanya’s room was easy; he took her violin and bow and immediately brought it back to his room. He had cleared out space for it on his desk, and when he placed it on the table he felt a sharp pang in his heart.

Klaus and Ben’s rooms were filled with so many spores, he reluctantly gave up any hope of going inside. Instead he’d gone into Diego’s bedroom and collected the knives that were hidden under the bed. He kept these on his person at all times, feeling comforted by their weight in his pockets.

To his surprise, Allison’s room had provided him with his most treasured item.

Initially he had assumed he would have to sift through all of her boy band magazines and make up in order to find something of interest to him, however the first thing he found in her dressing table drawer was a scrapbook filled with carefully cut out photos and headlines of their media appearances; newspaper and magazine articles, photographs and interview cut outs.

Five was surprised by the sentimentality, and somewhat shamefaced that he had always dismissed Allison as shallow and vain. She had even meticulously cut out articles which didn’t mention her; a small exposé on Klaus, a picture of Luther in an ad for healthy vitamins, and even a number of funny cartoons of Five, which he remembered a comic artist printing in the papers. 

He read the scrapbook before going to bed under the green glow of the outside world, devouring every last picture and tidbit about his family until he was almost transported back to his life with them.

* * *

The second thing he learned was that the presence of Ben’s monster didn’t necessarily keep away other creatures that dared to lurk in the Academy, which meant that Five still had to be careful when wandering the halls.

The beast itself feasted on the spores which grew on the walls, of which there were enough to last it a lifetime, however during the second day Five had dared to creep down the hall and watch it through the balustrades.

He had arrived just in time to see a creature that looked like a demonic horse crashing in through one of the windows, its legs buckling wildly and frantically and its mouth foaming as it tried to gallop through the living room.

Ben’s monster had snatched it off the ground quicker than Five could blink, wrapped two tentacles around its body and ripped it in half, throwing the two still thrashing chunks of flesh down its razor filled mouth. The crunching of bones and sight of blood spraying everywhere had sent Five running back to his room, sick with nausea and fear.

He could still see the horse-creature’s wild and white eyes as it screeched in agony and struggled in the tentacle monster’s grip when he went to sleep that night.

He had avoided the entrance hall after that, terrified that Ben’s monster would catch sight of him.

Instead he had explored other parts of the Academy.

He had raided the kitchen first of all. The food in the fridge was moldy and disgusting, however the pantry was well stocked with canned goods which had survived the spore like growths. In terms of sustenance, it seemed like he had nothing to worry about.

The infirmary had been stocked with plenty of antibiotics, which he had downed immediately to try and stave off the incoming infection from his leg. He had cleaned his leg as much as possible and wrapped it in gauze with shaky fingers.

He could only hope that it wouldn’t get infected as long as he kept taking the antibiotics, and wished again desperately that Grace was there to help him.

* * *

Five knew that if he wanted to get home, if he wanted to figure out how to bypass Ben’s monster and get back to his family, he would need to overcome his fears and face the monster.

He limped down to where he could view it in between the balustrades, tucking himself into the corner that was behind the monster’s line of sight. He set his leg on a pillow that he had brought with him so he could keep it elevated. It hadn’t gotten infected, which was a relief, however it was still causing him excruciating pain.

Once he was settled in, he observed the monster.

It was simply waiting there, watching the blue veil while its tentacles slid over the floors and walls, constantly in movement. The veil was no longer the pattern of the sweater vest. Instead Five could identify it as the inside of the light blue pajamas that they wore for bedtime, which meant that it must have been night time where his siblings were.

He was so focused on the monster that it took him a few seconds to realize that he could hear voices filtering through the veil.

_“…few minutes before bedtime-”_

Five jolted, nearly smacking his head against the railing, and whirled around to stare at the veil.

That had sounded just like Klaus.

He strained his ears to hear even more, wondering if it had just been a hallucination, however within seconds other voices began to filter in through the veil.

_“…we should…Allison’s room. The others are there already…”_

“… _one second, let me get my blanket-_ _”_

 _Holy shit_ , Five thought, his heart in his throat.

He could _hear_ through the veil, even when Ben hadn’t opened his stomach. He could hear everything that Ben was hearing.

_“Okay…sneaking in some snacks…under the bed-”_

The sound of his siblings’ voices made him nearly giddy with joy, and his vision blurred as he let the familiar voices wash over him.

Their voices were so close to him that he wondered if they could hear him back if he were to call out to them. He didn’t dare do it, not in the presence of the monster, but the longing was so deep it was like physical agony.

Choking back a gasp, he covered his hand over his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his breathing to calm down so that he could clearly hear the voices which were coming through the veil.

When the sound of his heartbeat pounding finally faded, he finally opened his eyes and allowed himself to listen.

 _“We’ll get in trouble if Dad finds us.”_ It was Luther’s voice, loud and clear.

 _“Whatever…cares what Dad thinks-”_ Diego now, as familiar as the day that Five had first heard him through the stomach portal. It was the voice that he’d been holding onto the most, because it was the only one he’d heard since landing in his hellhole.

 _“Dad won’t find us, Mom said he would be away all night,”_ Allison said, her voice sharp and confident as usual.

Five listened to what was clearly some sort of impromptu sleepover in Allison’s room. He was slightly surprised that they were all in the same room of their own accord.

The occasions when all seven of them were spending their free time together had been increasingly uncommon the past few years, as they had slowly started to break off into natural groups the older they had gotten.

Allison and Luther had begun spending most of their time together, either hanging out in Allison’s room or disappearing off without the others. Five, Ben and Vanya were also a relatively close trio, with Klaus occasionally hanging around or whisking Ben off on some escapade, when he wasn’t pestering Diego.

His stomach twisted as he wondered whether his disappearance had made them all grow closer to each other.

He wondered if they even felt his absence anymore.

_“…Pogo step in one of your peanut butter marshmallow sandwiches, Vanya-”_

Five perked up at the mention of his favorite sandwich.

 _“Oh my god…hilarious!”_ Klaus’ cackling laughter burst through the veil, loud and delighted. _“He looked so annoyed.”_

_“Why are you…out in the hall? Do you really…he’s coming back?”_

_“…don’t know.”_ Vanya’s sweet voice, shy and timid, was a little harder for Five to hear. He grasped on to every word that he could, committing her voice to his memory. _“I hope he does…wish I knew…happened to him.”_

Five’s breath caught as he realized they were talking about _him_.

He wanted to call out once again, wanted to scream through the portal that he was here, that he needed help. He reached out to grip the balustrade, tightening his hold until his knuckles turned white from the effort.

_“Bet he’s on an island in the Bahamas, sipping Mai Tais.”_

Five nearly laughed. Of course Klaus would think that.

 _“Do you think he’s okay?”_ Ben said, before the scene behind the veil shifted slightly, as if he were moving from where he was sitting. Five tried to squint, however he couldn’t see anything through the pajamas material.

_“…asshole, probably just r-r-r-ran away…don’t blame him-”_

Five couldn’t hear anything after that.

Carefully he pushed himself up and began to tiptoe away, creeping back to his room and closing the door behind him.

Diego’s words replayed in his mind over and over again, each time carving out a new and hollow wound in his heart, until after several exhausting hours he finally fell into a restless night’s sleep filled with dreams of loneliness and anger.

* * *

This world was a reflection of his own one, which meant that there were many things which seemed to exist here which had existed _there_.

The books he had left in his room were all there along with his furniture, however his uniforms were not. Diego’s uniforms were intact and present, and his knives had been under the bed, however all of his shoes were missing. Allison’s photos which she had pasted all over her dressing table mirror were missing, Luther’s dumbbells were gone and so on and so forth.

At first he had tried to connect the dots, understand if there was any kind of rhyme or reason however over time he realized that it was sheer randomness.

Some items followed into this world, others did not.

With that in mind, he used what he could to survive.

In between his time listening to his siblings talk, watching the monster and scavenging for food which hadn’t gone rotten, Five tried to find ways to entertain himself.

He had left _The Time Machine_ in his desk drawer the day that he had run away, and he found himself picking up where he had left off, even though it was difficult to read the words with only the glowing green light to illuminate the pages.

He struggled through the pages with determination, feeling a sense of camraderie with the Traveller in the books.

His own plight was strikingly similar, however unlike the Traveller who had first found himself encountering the gentle Eloi who lived above ground, Five felt like he’d been thrown into the underground caverns of the vicious Morlocks.

He caught glimpses of himself in the bathroom mirror, his face having become pale and gaunt over time. His skin was sallow and the bags under his eyes seemed like massive bruises. His bones were beginning to protrude under his skin, making it painful to sit on the floor next to the railings where he watched the beast.

His fingers trembled more often than not, and he felt truly, terribly weakened by the lack of sunlight.

In his mind, he wondered if he himself was warping into a Morlock.

Was that how the beasts of this world came to be? Did they all start out like him as normal beings, before slowly transforming into hideous and vile creatures?

If he spent more time in this world, would he eventually turn into a mindless _thing_ with no memory of his former life?

The thought scared him worse than anything else, and when he would sleep he would dream of himself as a blinded creature roaming in endless tunnels, hands braced against the walls as he tried to find his way out, but never once managing to escape.

* * *

The days in the Academy turned into weeks once again.

His leg healed up eventually although his calf and ankle became a mess of scar tissue, and he still ended up limping after only a few minutes of putting weight on his leg.

Five carved out multiple plans in his mind to distract the monster, to wound the monster, to _kill_ the monster, writing out his plans in intricate details on the walls of his room. Every corner, every free space, was covered in writing and ideas and the occasional mathematical equation as he tried to devise the ultimate plan to defeat the monster.

He had a theory.

He couldn’t teleport the way he usually could, but his powers still felt stronger the closer he got to Ben’s portal.

He had a theory that he could control it, open it himself so that he could jump through.

In the end however, it didn’t matter.

As much as he wrote and planned and plotted, the moment it was time to take action he hit a wall. He was frozen by fear and by the certainty of death.

Even when he had been healthy and at his peak, he stood no chance against Ben’s monster. Now, however, with his thin frame and wounded body and lack of powers, he knew that any confrontation with the monster would end in his gruesome death.

He dreamed of the the demon horse, squirming and screaming in the grasp of Ben’s monster, torn in half with ease.

He dreamed of being torn in half, of being thrown into a maw filled with razor sharp teeth, of being devoured alive.

On what he believed to be around the three month anniversary of his arrival, he ran out of space to write in his room.

* * *

Five spent every spare second listening to his siblings through the veil.

He followed Ben throughout his days, envisioning himself standing alongside his brother during their missions, their dinners, their sleepovers, their arguments.

It was the only thing that kept him going most days in this world of darkness.

_“…so here’s the plan…Diego, you climb in from behind…Klaus, you’re the lookout…”_

_“…thanks, Ben. I’ve been practicing, but I still can’t get this section completely right…”_

He could hear Vanya’s music playing through the veil occasionally, when Ben spent time in her room.

_“…asked me to model for their brand of clothing, do you think I should…”_

_“…found The Time Machine in Five’s room…finished my other book, thought I could…”_

_“…long it’s been since Five left, do you think…”_

_“…smoke some weed? I…your loss!”_

_“…where do you think Five is…”_

_“…I miss him…”_

_“…I hate him…”_

_“…don’t think he’s coming back…”_

_“…think he’s dead?”_

If Five closed his eyes tightly enough, he could pretend that he was right there with them.

* * *

Five should have known it was inevitable, should have seen it coming from a mile away.

He had gotten too comfortable, too cocky, settling into his routine of co-existing with this deadly tentacled monster and allowing himself to forget that this giant monster was still unaware of his presence around the house.

He let himself become careless, and made a mistake.

Just one mistake, but one was enough.

* * *

Five had just finished eating his dinner in the kitchen, which had consisted of peanut butter and a handful of dried pasta. He had been feeling too lazy to search through the pantry for anything more nutritious, and had crunched his way through the packet of uncooked rigatoni.

After he was done, he had headed back up to his usual spot on the balcony where he could listen in through the veil just out of sight of the monster.

He had set up some pillows and blankets in that corner, initially because sitting on his bony rear for hours on end was beginning to cause him immense pain, but also because he had started to feel unbearably cold at all hours of the day. No matter how many blankets he wrapped around himself, he was always cold.

He couldn’t tell whether the weather outside was beginning to turn frostier, or whether it was simply because of all the weight he had lost since living off dried foods and the increased frequency of mild food poisoning.

In any case, he had settled in for the evening, wrapping the blanket around his shivering body and allowing himself to drift off and enjoy the sound of his Ben and Klaus apparently arguing about who would win in a fight: Diego or Luther.

Around him, the green glow coming into through the cracks in the ground had dimmed slightly, although it still pulsated every few minutes, sending flashes of light across the room.

As he tilted his head back, he noticed a movement in the corner of his eye, something darting towards him.

A sharp pain burst through his collarbone.

“ _Ow!_ ” he cried, jerking out of his stupor. “Fuck!” The creature which had jumped on him, a slimy, hairless ferret-like creature, had bitten into his skin.

He reached up to rip it off, before freezing, hand hovering over the ferret beast.

Oh god.

His outburst. Ben’s monster.

_Oh god._

Five sat still as a statue, straining to hear what he could around the corner. The beast’s usual noises had gone unnaturally quiet; he could no longer hear the gurgling breathing, the low groans, the slippery sounds of tentacles sliding across the walls.

It was as if it had gone perfectly still.

Ben’s voice was still filtering through the veil, followed by a peal of laughter.

Five could only hear that, his own heart beating, and the sound of the hairless ferret beast biting into his flesh. It clamped down harder, digging its claws into him, and began to tug at his skin. He could feel the blood from the wound beginning to drip down his chest.

It was excruciating, nearly unbearable, but he didn’t dare make a whimper. He didn’t dare move even an inch to stop it.

In the silence, he heard a _creak_.

His breaths quickened, his panic rising. He didn’t move except to turn slightly to get a better view around the corner.

A tentacle slid around the corner.

The creature pulled harder, tearing a small piece of flesh right off him. Five thought his vision whited out for a full second, and he gritted his teeth in a silent scream, tears springing to his eyes.

It _burned_.

The tentacle stopped, shuddered, then started to probe around the wall. It was only a few feet away from him.

Five was shaking now, from the pain or the fear he didn’t know, but he could feel the cold sweat sliding down the back of his neck and blood dripping down his front. He wanted to scream but his voice was trapped in his throat, and he knew that if he made a single noise it would be the end.

It felt like an eternity, the way the beast’s tentacle’s carefully wrapped around the wall and slid along floor as if searching for something, _anything_.

Minutes passed.

The ferret clamped down on his already bleeding wound.

The tentacle finally retreated.

Five waited another few minutes before standing up, slowly creeping his way out and back up the stairs to his own room with a ferret creature hanging off of his body and gouging into his chest.

He waited until he reached his room and gently closed the door before reaching up to rip the creature off of him, tearing out another sliver of skin in the process.

Instinctively he bit into his arm and screamed in agony, over and over again until his teeth drew blood and his vision was blurred.

It was the worst pain he had ever felt.

The creature struggled in his grasp, but he squeezed and squeezed until it choked and eventually went limp, and after that he squeezed some more until his hand shook.

 _Fuck you_ , Five thought vindictively, unable to contain his hatred for the vile little monster that had almost gotten him killed. _Fuck you._

He needed to stop the bleeding, needed to do something to cover up the bloody chunk of missing flesh in his chest, however he was too exhausted from the ordeal.

He fell onto his bed, breathing shallowly, and within minutes had drifted off into a pain-filled sleep.

* * *

When Five woke up, he knew that there was something wrong.

He hadn’t woken up naturally, something had awoken him.

Something was in his room.

He glanced over to see his door open, and that was all the warning he received.

Tentacles crashed through doorway, ripping it wide open and tearing apart the wooden frame. They shot inside like bullets, knocking down the furniture and smashing through the walls as the monster dragged itself into his room.

Five screamed, terror coursing through his veins.

He scrambled off the bed, dodging a tentacle just in time, and threw himself against the window to the fire escape. He crashed through the glass, landing against the metal railing and slicing open his hands and arms and knees. There was no time to worry about that.

The monster roared, it’s huge gaping mouth appearing in the doorway, razor sharp teeth pulsating and sliding around its slimy mouth. Its eyes were focused on Five and only Five.

Several tentacles smashed through the other windows, sending glass flying everywhere, and several followed him through onto the fire escape.

He forced himself to his feet, flying down the creaking fire escape four steps at a time.

His legs were wobbling, muscles screaming, but he felt no pain. He felt only the rush of fear and panic as he ran, tripping over the steps and smacking into the railings. The fire escape protested under his weight and threatened to collapse.

A tentacle wrapped around his leg, pulling him back violently until he fell. His face smacked against the metal steps, blood spurting forward and vision blacking out.

Five cried out in agony, grabbing the steps with a vice like grip as the monster tugged. It was useless, the beast’s strength was unimaginable and it simply wrenched him back with no effort, whacking his chin against the steps as he was dragged.

There was a sharp pain in his tongue and he tasted blood filling up his mouth.

Desperately, Five shoved a hand in his pocket and reached for one of Diego’s knives. It sliced into his palm as he grabbed onto the sharp edge, and when he pulled it out his skin was slippery with blood.

He stabbed it into the tentacle as hard as he could, watching as black fluid gushed between his fingers.

The beast shrieked, a sound that reverberated across the entire street nearly loud enough to burst his eardrums, but it loosened its grip enough for Five to pull his leg out.

He scrambled and crashed down the fire escape, practically falling down until he reached the ladder and slid down it, the friction ripping the skin off his palms.

The monster was tearing down the fire escape after him, its many tentacles sliding in and out of the railings and bashing through the walls of the Academy in its effort to reach him. It was screeching continuously; one long endless scream that was echoing across the sky.

Five sprinted down the alleyway, running faster than he’d ever run in his life.

The world was spinning around him dangerously, his lungs burning with ice and every single part of him quivering so badly he had no idea how he was still standing, but he kept running.

There was a screech of metal, followed by loud creaking and a crashing and clanging which tore through the sounds of the outside. He turned around to see the fire escape had collapsed into the alleyway, blowing up clouds of dust, while the monster was quickly untangling itself and began to slide and slither down the alleyway behind him, using it’s tentacles to grab onto walls and pipes and everything it could to haul itself forward.

Five darted out of the alleyway and onto the main street, heart feeling like he was exploding in his chest.

There were no creatures on the street, likely having escaped in fear from the sounds of Ben’s monster, and if he’d had a second he would have been beyond grateful.

He couldn’t think however, he could only run.

All the weeks of planning and careful plotting, down the drain in a moment of carelessness.

Five knew this was his only chance; he had no other choice.

He could hear the beast gaining on him, its tentacles smashing through cars and shop windows, its entire body sliding across the main street as it screeched. He ran his legs screaming for mercy until he reached his destination.

Five ripped open the front gate, tore up the stairs and pushed open the front door of the Academy, praying to everything that ever existed that it was unlocked.

It was unlocked.

The monster screamed in fury behind him, but he ignored it. He was so close.

He burst into the entrance hall, his eyes on the veil that he had been longing for since he arrived, Diego’s knife in his hand.

With every fiber of his being, he drew that familiar energy into his hands. They glowed blue, crackling and spluttering, but the usual rip in space didn’t start to open between his hands.

Instead, the portal in Ben’s stomach pulsed and crackled, a circular shape beginning to grow within it until he was no longer looking at a translucent veil but directly at the material of Ben’s light blue pajamas.

His theory was _right_.

The monster burst through the door, nearly ripping it off its hinges entirely.

Five ran, leapt head first into the portal, knife facing forward, cutting straight through the pajamas like tissue paper.

The monster’s tentacles reached out; one of them brushed against his ankle.

He landed on the other side.

* * *

He went flying forward into the wall, nearly face planting against it.

The first thing he saw was Klaus, splayed out on Ben’s desk chair and staring at him with a look of utter shock. His hands were gripping a nail polish container, although most of it had spilled all of his pajama shirt and trousers.

Five pushed himself up to his feet, legs trembling harder than ever, and turned around.

He saw Ben, sitting on the bed with his back to the wall, eyes wide as he stared back at him.

His shirt was ripped open, stomach portal still glowing blue and behind it, Five could see the beast’s tentacles reaching out for him.

“Close your stomach,” he rasped. Blood trickled down the side of his mouth, and he knew he must have looked like a monster himself.

Ben didn’t move, his fingers twitching slightly.

One of the tentacles pierced through, and Five launched himself back against the wall.

“ _Now, Ben! Do it now!_ _”_ he cried. Ben seemed to awaken from his stupor, and he quickly slid and arm around his stomach, forcing the tentacles to retreat back inside. He scrambled to pull a shirt over his head, blocking the stomach hole from view completely, before straightening back up again.

His monster _screamed_ in fury, louder than Five had ever heard it, loud enough for Klaus to yelp and clap his nail polish covered hands over his ears.

Then it was silent, except for the sound of Five’s heavy breathing.

In the distance, he could hear doors opening and footsteps running around. He could also hear a rushing sound, like the sound of a waterfall slowly getting louder and louder until everything else was muffled.

“Five?” Klaus said tentatively, trembling fingers reaching out. “Is…is that you? Are you…Ben, can you see him too?” His voice was thin, as if he were seconds away from breaking down.

“I see him too,” Ben said. His eyes were shining, arms wrapped tightly around his middle.

Klaus’ fingers brushed against Five’s arms, and he flinched away from the burn of it.

“Holy shit, that’s a lot of blood.”

Five turned around, reaching for Ben’s door handle and pushing the door open. His legs were like lead, he was moving through water as he staggered out into the hallway.

The hallways lights had been switched on, and he could make out various figures standing in the doorways and staring at him.

He needed to get to the infirmary.

He was weak, dizzy, covered in his and the monster’s blood, and he was hit with a debilitating tiredness that he thought could resemble what it felt like to by dying.

“F-F-Five?”

Diego was in front of him, eyes round and bottom lip trembling dangerously.

Numbly, Five shoved the bloody knife that he had been holding at his brother, who took it reflexively although his face never left Five’s.

“This is yours,” Five mumbled.

He could suddenly hear the light tapping of hurried footsteps approaching, and before he knew it Grace was swooping down on him and gently leading him forward.

“Come along now, Five, your father will be with us in a moment,” she said urgently, her hand warm and gentle against his back.

He allowed her to lead him to the infirmary, while Pogo commanded the children to return to their rooms. He could hear them protesting heatedly however when the shadow of Reginald Hargreeves suddenly appeared in the hallway, they each ducked back into their rooms without complaint.

When they reached the infirmary, Five’s legs were shaking so badly that Grace had to help lift him onto the bed. He sat there, pale and winded, his whole body trembling like a leaf and sweat running down his chest.

“He’s in shock,” he heard Grace saying to Pogo and his father, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying in response. Their voices were so far away. They were far away.

He felt like he was floating out of his body, like he was hot and cold at the same time, like he was someone else. The world was tilting slowly to the side, and he was tilting along with it uncontrollably.

Hands reached out to steady him, anchoring him to the bed.

Five let them pull off his shirt, surveying the damage underneath with solemn and silent gazes. He let them gently lay him down so that they could begin to treat his injuries, let them do it all without complaint because he was somewhere else.

His head tilted to the side, and he found himself staring into the eyes of his father. Reginald’s expression was completely unreadable, neither severe nor pitying, and Five felt nothing.

He saw the horse creature, tangled in the monster’s tentacles, its eyes wide and white with terror.

He saw it flailing, screaming, struggling to survive.

Grace’s hand reached up to touch his cheek, her warm and gentle fingers brushing away something wet from his bruised skin.

“Five, dear, you’re crying,” she said softly. He blinked slowly, turning back to stare at her. 

“I know,” he whispered, more to himself than to her. _I don't know how to stop._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed, comments are greatly appreciated <3


	3. The Blindness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed that I've taken away the four chapter count, and that's because I have no control over this story and it keeps growing. I have no clue how long this will be, so will just have to see where the story takes us.  
> As always, thank you for your wonderful comments they bring me so much joy <3

Being back home didn’t provide Five with the instant relief that he had imagined it would.

He awoke from his nightmare slowly, over the course of the next two days, emotions swinging wildly between crippling fear and complete apathy. According to Grace, the chest wound from the wretched ferret monster had become slightly infected, leading to Five coming down with a raging fever.

During the day he would struggle to do anything except sleep or rest or beg for both more or less blankets, he was so exhausted. At night his heart would be racing with terror for hours on end from endless fever dreams and night terrors.

It was debilitating enough to his recovery that Reginald had given Grace permission to stay with him each night, rather than powering down in her usual spot in front of her usual paintings.

While the long term effects of his time in the other dimension had been slowly chipping away at him the past few months, it was the stress of his confrontation with Ben’s monster that brought everything crashing down in a single tidal wave.

He ached everywhere, the bite wound throbbing with heat and pain.

Five didn’t care. He was back in the Academy, his family just within reach, and a little bit of discomfort was nothing compared to what he had just been through.

They had moved him to his room after the first night, and Grace had revealed to him that the others were forbidden to visit him, at least until their father had had the chance to talk to Five properly himself.

“Why doesn’t he talk to me now, then?” Five asked sleepily, as she gently tucked a blanket around him.

He had just awoken from a two hour nap, and judging by the darkness and silence around the house it was past midnight. If Grace hadn’t been here, he would have thought that he was back in the other world. Maybe that was why he allowed her to coddle him and touch him more than he usually would have.

“You can barely stay awake, dear. He thought it best to wait until you were more responsive,” she explained, giving him a kiss on the forehead before telling him to go back to sleep.

He complied, and within seconds he was under. His dreams were filled with nightmares, darkness and monsters.

As it had been for the past two days, his sleep lasted only a short time before he was jolted awake, sweating and gasping for breath as the image of a tentacled beast slowly faded from his mind.

Grace was by his side in an instant, gently brushing his hair back from his sweaty forehead, whispering reassurances until he had finally calmed down. The spores and vines around the room and on the walls faded from view within seconds, and he could relax against the bed once more.

“Mom,” he said, once his pulse was no longer racing. His mind felt heavy with fever. “How long was I away for?”

“Just over four months,” Grace said softly. “Your brothers and sisters were all so worried about you, Five. We all were.”

Five scoffed. “Yeah, right. I bet Dad didn’t give a shit.”

Grace hummed, which was usually the answer she would give when she didn’t know the correct way to respond to a rude statement about their father.

It told Five all he needed to know about his father’s reaction to his disappearance.

* * *

On the third day of his return, when he was able to stay awake for more than a few hours, Reginald finally came to see him.

Wasting no time on frivolities, the man walk into the room and stood looming over his bed.

“Judging by the frankly alarming state you arrived in the other night, am I correct in assuming you attempted to time travel after your childish outburst?” Reginald asked, his eyes roaming critically over Five’s various injuries.

For once he was speaking at a relatively normal volume, rather than his loud authoritative bark. Most likely he didn’t feel the need for it, considering Five was somewhat sedated and lacking any of his usual belligerence.

Five was too tired to conjure up his usual feelings of resentment and rebellion against his father, his fever having only receded that morning.

“You’re correct,” he muttered.

Reginald viewed him with an unreadable gaze, and Five wished he knew what the man was thinking. After a few seconds, his father pulled out a familiar red notebook with gold trim and the letters ‘ _R.H._ _’_ on the front, and uncapped his personally engraved pen before sitting on the chair next to the bed.

He set the notebook onto Five’s desk and opened it to a fresh page.

“As I suspected. Now, you shall tell me exactly what happened from the moment you left the Academy, until the moment you returned, Number Five. I believe that this information could be pertinent to understanding the limitations of your abilities.”

He then waited, looking at Five expectantly as he held his pen poised and ready.

Five swallowed, turning his gaze up to the ceiling. He had been preparing himself for this, and yet he felt anything but prepared. He had spent the past few days avoiding everything to do with the other world, because the memory of it made him weak at the knees.

“Well, hurry up now! I don’t have all day!” Reginald’s impatient tone cut through his thoughts.

With great difficulty, he recounted the events of the past four and a half months.

He had considered whether to lie about his experiences, or embellish the truth, to protect himself from Reginald. After all, information was power, and that was the last thing Five wanted to give his father.

Under Reginald’s cold gaze, however, Five found himself unable to lie. He recounted everything that had happened to him since storming out of the house, watching as the man scribbled down notes that were just out of his line of sight.

He spoke about landing in the parallel dimension, how he had holed up in a storage cupboard with no sunlight for six weeks, how he had been attacked and nearly torn apart by various creatures, how he had found his way to the Academy and shared it with Ben’s monster, and finally how he had opened the portal using his powers and jumped back home.

When he was finally finished, ending at his dramatic expulsion from Ben’s stomach, Reginald capped his pen and put it back into his pocket.

“Well, I believe I’ve heard enough,” Reginald said, unimpressed. His tone hadn’t lost any of its sharpness. “ _Clearly,_ your so-called experiment was a catastrophic failure on your part; I can’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

“You were right,” Five muttered, the words bitter on his tongue. “I shouldn’t have attempted it. It was…a mistake.”

Reginald made a noise of agreement.

“Indeed, a foolish mistake. At least it seems your experiences have humbled you,” he said. “I always considered your arrogance to be one of your greatest flaws.”

The words stung, and Five had to swallow back the hurt to keep his expression neutral. Whatever part of him had hoped for the tiniest bit of sympathy from his father was extinguished in an instant.

“No matter.” Reginald stood up from his chair. “Grace has assured me that you will make a full recovery within a fortnight, after which we can resume training. Your… _expedition_ has only served to demonstrate exactly how important it is for you children to apply yourself to your training, if you wish to master your powers.”

Without further ado Reginald turned to leave, not even sparing Five another glance. As his hand rested on the door handle, Five heard himself blurt out:

“I don’t think it’s going to stop.”

Reginald paused, eyebrow raised.

“The monster. It was _obsessed_ with escaping through Ben, with coming into our world. I think it’s going to keep trying until it…until it rips Ben apart trying to escape.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re correct. Unless Number Six truly applies himself to his training and assumes control of his powers, then his premature death will be inevitable.”

Five stared at him, slack with disbelief.

“You don’t seem to be that upset about Ben dying,” he said hoarsely, and Reginald frowned.

“Frankly, I shall be disappointed to have invested so much time in Number Six, only for his training to end in such an abysmal failure,” he said. “If his powers were to consume him, he would have nobody to blame but himself for his lackluster effort!”

Then he left, and Five felt as if someone had punched a hole in his gut.

* * *

In the evening after the sun had set and Five was near ready to pass out, Grace quietly asked him if he was ready to see his brothers and sisters. He forced himself to wake up as she opened the door, eager to finally be able to see the others.

His siblings entered the room, exhibiting a strange mix of reservation and eagerness as they approached until they were all crowded around his bed. He could see them all eying the bandages around his chest and limbs where they were peeking underneath the material of his pajamas.

Five had thought about them every day in the other world, had listened to them through the veil and lived their lives as much as he was able. The cavernous ache of their absence had been like a phantom limb, something he couldn’t touch or see but which plagued him at every step.

Now that they were here, he was unable to speak or even breathe through the torrent of emotions that rushed through him.

He had been sure he would never see them again.

Klaus, bold as always, was the first to break the awkward silence.

“Wow, Five you look _awful_ ,” he said, eyes wide as they surveyed Five. “Like, _really_ bad.”

Five huffed, although he wasn’t too offended. “Gee thanks, asshole. Nice to see you too.”

“He’s right,” Luther said, frowning. His expression was twisted with uncertainty. “Why are you so thin and…pale? Ben said you were covered in blood when you arrived.”

Five’s recollection of his arrival was fuzzy, although he remembered his clothes and skin being slick with blood. He remembered Klaus’ scared look as he reached out to touch him, and Diego’s shocked demeanor.

He remembered Ben staring at him as the monster inside reached out from his stomach.

“Dad wouldn’t allow us to come visit,” Vanya near whispered, her eyes bright and shiny. “He wouldn’t tell us where you’d been, either.”

“Where _have_ you been?” Diego demanded. “You were gone for ages, we thought you were dead!”

Five closed his eyes for a second, letting their words wash over him, before smiling weakly.

“I tried to time travel and failed pretty badly,” he said. “Turns out Dad was right and I threw myself in some deep shit.” 

Klaus put his hands up, gesturing in disbelief. “Sorry, did you just say Dad was _right_?”

“That doesn’t answer the question of where you were,” Allison interjected. Five’s eyes flickered over to her unwittingly.

Aside from himself, Allison had always been the most perceptive of them all when it came to reading people. Her rumor powers and confidence meant that she was a keen manipulator, and spent the most time around people outside of the Academy.

Right now, Five felt like he was being watched under a microscope.

If he had been at his peak, then he could have easily conjured up an elaborate lie about where he had been during his disappearance.

As it was, he was already exhausted by this short reunion.

“I don’t remember,” he lied. “I just remember trying to use my powers to time travel, and then the next thing I knew I was in Ben’s bedroom.”

It sounded lame even to his own ears. Allison’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Five knew what she was about to say even before she said it.

“Maybe I could try rumoring it out of you.”

He tried to stifle the visceral reaction in his gut, the feeling of his skin crawling at the suggestion. He couldn’t _stand_ being rumored, never mind being rumored into revealing the endless nightmare that haunted his every waking moment. At that very moment, dramatic as it was, he would rather die than tell them what had happened to him.

“Don’t even try it,” Five snapped. “Seriously, Allison, _don_ _’t_.”

Allison pouted, looking put off however she made no move to use her powers. He remained tensed, coiled and ready to blink out of there if she did.

She might have been momentarily subdued, but Five knew that it was a temporary reprieve. He would need to watch out for Allison.

“Do your injuries hurt?” Vanya asked, reaching up to brush the bandages on his hand. Five glanced down to where her fingers touched his skin.

He had completely sliced his palm open on Diego’s knife when escaping the beast, and Grace had spent some time reassuring him through the pain as she had stitched the wound up on his first night.

“Mom gave me painkillers.”

“Again, not an answer,” Allison grumbled.

Wanting to move away from the topic of his injuries, Five instead moved the conversation to what they had all been up to in his absence, and like floodgates opening they all began to talk at once. It was as if they had been storing up everything they had wanted to say to him, and now that they had the chance they were buzzing with excitement.

They told him about how they had sneaked out to Griddy’s and been caught by Pogo, who promised not to tell on them. They told him about the training Reginald had put them through, how they had adapted without Five’s teleportation abilities with great difficulty.

They spoke about the missions they had been on, how Luther had saved someone from being beaten by a group of teenagers, how Allison had rumored a thief to return the purse he had stolen, how Diego had lost his knife and subdued a robber with his bare hands. 

They told him how Pogo had stepped on the sandwiches Vanya had left for him outside his door.

As the time passed and Five began to struggle to keep his eyes open, Grace finally swooped in and began to usher them away.

“I’m sorry children, but that’s enough for today. It’s almost past your bedtime and your father wants you up bright and early for training tomorrow,” she said. “Five needs to rest as well, you can all see him in the morning after your training.”

Immediately the others burst into a chorus of complaints.

“Aw, what? But we barely got to talk to Five-”

“Mom, please-”

Grace refused to back down however, and after much protest they allowed themselves to be herded out like sheep, each of them saying goodbye to Five reluctantly.

When Grace closed the door and came to sit next to him, he felt lighter than he had in months. He felt like he was finally home, and like he was wrapped in a warm security blanket.

Grace reached out to hold his hand, he let her, and felt asleep with her warm touch entangled between his fingers.

* * *

While Five no longer had a fever, his body was still recovering from the lack of proper nutrition and sunlight that he had experienced in the past few months. Both that combined with his injuries meant that he could barely walk up and down the stairs without being completely out of breath.

He was allowed to wander around the mansion for some exercise under Grace’s supervision although outside was out of the question considering it was still much too chilly for them to comfortably sit outside.

During his recovery time, his brothers and sisters popped in frequently to spend time with him. Allison and Klaus brought their gossip magazines to his room, chatting excitedly about the latest boy bands.

When Five grouched about them distracting him from his book, Klaus simply waved him off.

“Oh, come on Five, you sure you don’t want to take this quiz with us?” he asked eagerly, holding the magazine open so that Five was able to read the words off the page.

“ _What boy band personality type are you?_ _”_ Five read out loud, squinting at the page. “No thanks, I frankly couldn’t care less. You guys seriously waste your time on these?”

“Sure we do, it’s fun,” Allison said primly. “And you’re taking the quiz, whether or not you like it.”

Five narrowed his eyes, however she simply ignored him and stubbornly began reading out the questions. When he refused to answer she glared at him until he finally acquiesced, and she would move on to the next one.

Each answer ignited a series of giggles from both Klaus and Allison, although they refused to tell him what they were laughing about.

When Klaus had finally ticked off the list after Allison finished quizzing them, he presented the results with a wide grin.

“Results are in! Allison, you are _The Heartthrob_ , no surprise there. You would probably be front and center of every photo shoot. My result is _The Goofball._ _”_

“And Five?”

Klaus smirked. “Five is _The Bad Boy_.”

Allison threw her head back and laughed uncontrollably, while Five glowered at them from where he was sat. He buried himself back in his book and scowled.

“I hate you both.”

It simply made them laugh harder.

* * *

During one of the evenings when he was feeling like his strength was finally returning to him, Vanya came to visit him alone.

She played him a new piece of music that she had been practicing by Vivaldi, which Five immediately recognized as one that he had mentioned enjoying when she had played him a few shaky notes several months ago.

He had had the strength to sit up properly to watch her play, and he clapped enthusiastically once she was done.

“I know you liked this piece so I practiced it every day while you were gone,” Vanya admitted, setting the violin down in its case. “I was hoping that you would come back so I could play it for you.”

Her eyes filled with unshed tears, and she reached forward to wrap her arms around him.

Five uncharacteristically let her, knowing that she needed this as much as he did.

“I missed you,” she whispered.

“I missed you too,” he said, equally as quiet.

It felt like all of his stress had melted away in Vanya’s embrace, like he had never left and existed through a waking nightmare for several months.

After a few minutes she finally detached from him, her arms falling to her side. She climbed off his bed after a few minutes, picking up her violin case and wishing him a goodnight. When she had closed the door behind her, Five stood up to walk towards the door and switch off his light.

It was the first night that Grace wasn’t sitting by his bed while he slept.

His hand hovered over the light switch, inches away and steady, for several minutes. Finally it dropped back down and he backed away, crawling back onto bed and trying not to think about what that meant.

With the ceiling light still shining brightly down, he allowed himself to fall asleep.

* * *

Despite all the little issues, the small inconveniences, despite the nightmares, the inability to sleep in the dark, the flashbacks, the fatigue, the ongoing pain from his endless injuries, Five felt optimistic about the future.

Once his two weeks of rest was up, Reginald wasted no time on insisting that he join the following training session with his siblings.

Frankly, Five was buzzing with excitement. He hadn’t had the opportunity to use his powers in months, and despite how taxing Academy training was, it was the first true step back to normality.

He put on the Academy’s green tracksuit and headed down to the training rooms without any fuss, and when he stepped into the training room and found his siblings waiting he was struck with a dizzying sense of familiarity.

“Number Five and Number Two! You will be paired up for the morning session,” Reginald said. “Resume your target practice training, exactly as before.”

Klaus and Luther were paired up, while Ben and Allison had run to the other end of the room to begin.

“Don’t hold back,” Five said to Diego as they got into position.

“W-w-wasn’t planning to,” he said shortly. “You ready?”

Diego was flipping his practice knives in his hands with ease. Grace had blunted at the edges and wrapped the tips with leather so they wouldn’t pierce skin, however from what Five remembered they still hurt like hell when they hit their target.

Five shook his head, squeezing his hands into fists.

“I just want to test it first,” he said. He hadn’t teleported once since his fateful time travel attempt, and now he wished he had tried in his room first, without the curious gaze of his siblings around them. He could see the others beginning to spar in their specialized training, but he knew that they were glancing over to see what he would do.

He squeezed his hands into fists, pulling together that familiar power that he had been tugging at for so many months.

When he had jumped through Ben’s stomach he had used his powers, but his body had been pumping with so much adrenaline that he hadn’t been able to truly _feel_ the sensation.

Five disappeared through the flash of blue.

For a second his breath stopped, he squeezed his eyes shut and terror raced through his heart. What if he landed back in the other dimension, what if the monster was waiting for him, what if he miscalculated again, _what if-_

He reappeared a few feet away, and he was back in the training room.

“Looks like you’re good to go,” Diego said, when Five didn’t speak for several seconds. “Now are you ready?”

Five game him what he hoped was a smug smile, but probably came out as more of a grimace. He didn’t want Diego to see how his hands were shaking, how heavy his breathing had become.

He didn’t want any of them to see how much that had terrified him.

He could power through this, as long as he put his mind to it. The fear was conquerable and puny compared to his willpower, he only had to ignore it and he could get through this.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” he said, shaking his hands out.

Diego threw the knife without warning, and Five only had a second to blink out of the way. As he reappeared, his brother directed the knife towards him and he had no choice but to dive down to dodge it.

Again, his heart was racing, adrenaline rushing through him.

He blinked to dodge another knife, only to yelp as a second one that Diego had thrown hit his shoulder.

_Throw. Jump._

_Throw. Jump._

_Throw. Jump._

It was like sliding back into a routine, a familiar rhythm that he had always experienced with Diego. With each jump his fears began to slowly chip away, until all that was left was the physical exhaustion of pushing himself beyond his limits.

When Diego ran out of knives and raced to pick up the nearest one, Five blinked in front of him and swiped his legs out from under him. Diego went sprawling onto the ground, only just managing to put his hands out to prevent himself from kissing the floor.

“I win,” Five announced, breathing as heavily as if he’d run a marathon.

Diego scowled. “Doesn’t count, I ran out of knives.”

“You think the criminals will wait for you to pick up your knives?” Five rolled his eyes, watching as Diego collected each of them off the ground. “I sure as hell won’t.”

At the corner of his eye he saw Ben jumping out of Allison’s reach.

He saw Ben’s top ride up slightly, the edge of the material lifting just slightly to reveal the edges of the cavernous stomach.

Something smacked him in his face and his head snapped back, hands jumping up to grip the side of his face.

“ _Ow, fuck!_ ”

Diego’s knife had bounced off his still somewhat tender cheek, sending blinding pain through his head. When his vision cleared, he could make out a smug look on Diego’s face.

“Thought you weren’t waiting for me to pick up my knives?” Diego mocked.

Five narrowed his eyes, letting his hand drop back down to his side. He was pretty sure his cheek would be swollen tomorrow, but the pain was already behind him.

“It’s on, _asshole_.”

* * *

Five settled back into normal life with ease after that.

The memories of the other world and of the monster were still looming, but if he tried hard enough he could lock them away in the recesses of his mind. If he willed it enough, he could ignore it and hope that eventually they would start of fade of their own.

The knowledge that Ben might be in danger still haunted him, but like everything else he simply pushed it aside. The farther he pushed it, the more he could forget about it.

He distracted himself with his family, with his books, with his powers.

He built a wall around his memories.

He was safe.

* * *

The wall began to crumble within days.

During one of the nights where he was combing through a book, any book except the goddamn _Time Machine_ , the other siblings had all come wandering into his room throughout the evening each of their own accord.

First Vanya had walked in asking shyly if he could hang out, which he’d agreed to, followed by Ben who came in with Five’s copy of _The Time Machine._ He confessed sheepishly to having taken it from Five’s room while he was gone.

Five took it was shaking fingers, keeping his eyes carefully on the opposite wall.

_“I don’t think it’s going to stop.”_

His own words were ringing in his head every time he looked at Ben, along with the bitter taste of guilt.

Luther and Allison joined them later, bringing a game of _Snap_ which their mother had gotten them several birthdays ago, and finally Diego and Klaus once the others had settled in comfortably.

It was the first time they had all been in the room together since he’d first arrived, with the exception of training and dinners, and it reminded him of his times sitting outside the veil and listening in. It seems as though they were drifting back together again, unlike before he had made his unfortunate trip when they had been drifting apart.

Perhaps his absence had reminded them of what they had missed about each other. Perhaps Five could even twist his experiences into something positive if it meant they all became closer.

“Why won’t you let me rumor you?”

Five didn’t glance up at Allison, when she interrupted their chatter, even thought her question made almost everyone in the room pause with interest.

He was too busy trying to grab Klaus’ hands as his brother tried to apply eyeshadow onto him. Klaus had been insisting on testing his makeup on someone other than himself and Allison, and Five had become his new target much to his dismay.

“Because- _Klaus, get off-_ I just don’t feel like it, _Allison_ ,” he said, twisting Klaus’ wrist behind his back. “And it may surprise you to learn, but there’s _nothing_ enjoyable about being rumored.” 

“Aw come on Five, just let me try!” Klaus laughed, trying to reach behind with the brush. He managed to jab Five on the lip, leaving a full smear of black eye shadow on his mouth which he blew away irritably.

“Hell no! Put that crap on Vanya’s face instead.”

Klaus jumped off his chair and instead climbed onto the bed where Vanya was sitting, raising his makeup brush questioningly. She put down the book she was reading and nodded eagerly, excited to be involved in any kind of fun activity.

Allison frowned. “But you said you don’t remember what happened. Are you at least curious?”

“No, I’m not,” Five sighed. “I don’t understand why you won’t just let it go.”

“What if it’s important? You were _covered in blood-_ ”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, I’m _here_ now-”

“ _I heard a rumor-_ _”_

 _“Don’t you fucking dare!_ ” Five grabbed the lamp off his desk and threw it against the wall, interrupting Allison’s attempt and eliciting a shocked cry from the others. The bulb smashed into a million pieces on the floor, followed by the mangled lamp, which Diego and Luther scrambled away from.

Silence descended upon them, with the exception of Five’s heavy breathing. He had stood up at some point from his chair, fists clenched by his side so tight that his knuckles were turning white.

Allison’s eyes were wide and scared, an expression that was reflected across the faces of all of his brothers and sisters. They were all silent, wary.

They looked at him as if he were a wild animal.

“Get out,” he said, after what felt like an eternity. He was exhausted, furious. He needed to be alone. “Everyone get the hell out of my room.”

Vanya was the first to speak, her lower lip trembling.

“Five-”

“I said _get out!_ ”

The fury in his tone was enough for the others to start scrambling away, with Klaus and Vanya jumping off the bed while Diego stood up from the floor. They gave Five a final glance before disappearing out the room, and when they were gone he could hear them speaking to each other in hushed voices.

Luther pulled at Allison, muttering something to her until she followed him, although her eyes never left Five.

Only Ben remained.

He stood by the side of the bed quietly, patiently waiting until Five had calmed the tremors in his hands and sat back down in his chair, sagging heavily against his desk.

“I thought I told you to get the fuck out,” Five grumbled under his breath, although the anger had drained out of him. He reached up with his hand to squeeze the bridge of his nose. He could feel a headache growing in his temple, threatening to split him in half.

The old him would have felt mortified by his outburst, by the absolute loss of control he had shown in front of the others.

Instead he felt scared.

Scared that everything he’d worked towards in these past few weeks was teetering on the edge, threatening to unravel at the slightest nudge. There was no running from his memories if they were out for all the world to see.

He looked around to see Ben shifting from one foot to another uncomfortably, before finally breaking his silence.

“We were all really worried about you,” he said finally. “All of us really missed you, even if some of us don’t want to say it.”

Five couldn’t stop the soft groan escaping his lips. “I know that. I just…” He left the words hanging in the air.

“Does you disappearing have anything to do with the monster?”

He sighed. “I told you I don’t remember. What part of that is so difficult for you all to understand?”

“It’s been talking to you in my head.”

Five sucked in a breath, his whole body tensing.

It was as if all warmth had been sucked out of the windows. He struggled to keep his face completely neutral, however from the way Ben was studying him he was sure that he’d let something slip.

“What do you mean _‘talking to me in your head_ ’?” Five asked, unable to stop the trembling in his voice. “Does it… _talk_ to you? You’ve never mentioned that before.”

A familiar fear began creeping up his spine.

Ben bit his lip and shrugged. “You know I don’t like talking about my powers.”

“What is…what is it saying about me?”

He watched as his brother hesitated, his fingers brushing against the edge of his pajama top, his eyes becoming vacant and empty.

Five held his breath.

“ _I_ _’m waiting for you_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always appreciated <3


	4. The Barrier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your comments, they spark so much joy <3 This is a rough chapter, so please check the trigger warnings. 
> 
> TW: Panic attacks, hallucinations, PTSD like symptoms, claustrophobia

Breakfast was a muted affair.

When Five had finally gathered up the courage to leave his room after a long night of tossing, turning, and jolting at every movement in his periphery, it was only to find that everyone was already gathered around the dining table. Every eye landed on him as he walked in, his immaculate attire unrepresentative of the night he had just been through.

“ _You_ _’re late_ , Number Five,” Reginald snapped, unimpressed. His monocled eye was narrowed as he watched Five walk around the table before parking himself at his usual spot, in between Vanya and Diego.

Across from Ben.

“I’m fully aware of that,” he said rudely, feeling particularly belligerent towards his father. In the corner of his eye he could see his other siblings shifting uncomfortably, shooting each other concerned looks, but Five was beyond worrying about repercussions.

Despite the authority that Reginald still held over Five, it was no longer tinged with fear. Five had hidden from monsters that would tear his father’s skin apart; he had confronted a gigantic beast that left his shaking at the knees and lived. His nightmares were no longer filled with training and punishments and a disapproving gaze.

Compared to the monsters Five had seen, Reginald was nothing.

“As you are well aware, punctuality is a valued trait in this household! I expect you to be on time tomorrow.” Reginald’s scolding voice cut through his thoughts. “Now sit!”

They sat in their seats and began to dig in, an almost Pavlovian response to their father’s orders. Five let himself slump into his chair, cutting into his bacon and keeping his head down. He could feel the others’ eyes burning into his head; however he never took his eyes off the food in front of him.

He didn’t want to risk glancing up and seeing their curious stares; the concern or anger on their faces. He couldn’t risk meeting Ben’s eyes. The vacant look on his face when he had spoken to Five was branded into his mind, and he wondered; if he looked up now, would he see that same hollow stare?

Once breakfast was finished, they were given their usual ten minutes of free time before their weekly history lesson with Pogo. Five made a beeline back to his room, wondering whether he could sneak in a quick ten minute nap. He marched off quicker than the rest so that he could avoid incoming questions about his behavior last night, managing to reach the entrance stairs before he was suddenly accompanied by Allison.

“Could we talk?” she asked, sounding slightly out of breath.

“That depends,” he said lightly. “Are you going to try and rumor me like you did last night?” He was unable to hide his bitterness at the memory of it, even though he had practically forgotten it in the ensuing events with Ben.

“No I won’t rumor you, I promise. Actually I wanted to apologize,” she admitted sheepishly. “I shouldn’t have tried to rumor you, it was rude of me.”

Five tried not to let his disbelief show on his face. He could count on one hand the number of times he had heard Allison admit she was wrong. Usually she would simply wave away any concerns, dodge making an apology and talk or rumor her way out of any situation which painted her as the bad guy.

She was as proud as Five was, which meant never backing down unless there was no other choice.

He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Did you hit your head or something last night?”

Allison’s lips twitched. “Maybe I did. Maybe I just felt bad.”

He itched to challenge her further, but he knew that pushing back too hard could lead to her rescinding her promise. Unlike himself, Allison liked to avoid conflict whenever possible; her powers made it easy enough for her to side step all arguments.

“Well, for the sake of peace, I guess I can accept your apology.”

“Great!” she said, immediately looking relieved. They were walking up the stairs on the way to Five’s floor, but she made no move to break away to her own room. “Since that’s settled, maybe you could tell me why you’re lying to us about not remembering anything?”

Five barely twitched, despite the anxiety that gripped him at those words.

 _Fuck_ , Allison was observant. He should have known she wouldn’t have apologized without wanting something in return.

“I’m _not_ lying.”

They had reached his door now, but he made no move to open it. He didn’t want to open the door in front of her, didn’t want her to see the spores that he had been seeing in his dreams plastered all over the walls and the blood splashed on the floor.

“Yes, you are,” Allison insisted, oblivious to his darkening mood. “I know you, Five. If you really didn’t remember, you would be the first person to jump at a chance to find out. You would be just as curious as me about what happened, maybe even more. You would _never_ be satisfied with being kept in the dark.”

Five swallowed down rising panic, fingers squeezing the door handle. Allison’s observations put him on edge, made him feel cornered. She hadn’t noticed, still caught up in her determination to deliver the words she had clearly been bottling up.

“You’ve been acting weird, ever since you showed up after disappearing for what, four months? And you expect us to just pretend that everything’s okay-”

“Frankly, Allison, I don’t expect anything from you except to keep your nose out of my business _,_ ” Five hissed. He was out of breath, his own voice ringing in his ears. “Don’t pretend like you care; you don’t give a crap about me. You just hate not being able to control me so I can satisfy your curiosity.”

Allison stared at him, her jaw slack. “What? Five, what are you talking about-”

“I’m talking about your insufferable need to manipulate everyone around you,” Five continued, stepping forward and forcing her to shuffle back. “I’m talking about your selfishness and entitlement, how you can’t _stand_ the fact that for once, you can’t just force someone to do what _you_ want them to do!”

Her eyes were filling up with tears, and although the sight of it made him writhe internally with self-hatred, Five couldn’t make himself take back the words. He pushed back against the regret that was churning in his gut, against every cell in his body fighting against him to stop hurting his sister.

“Five, I’m trying to _help_ you,” she said, her voice wobbling. “You were _covered_ in blood, and-and _awful_ wounds, and you won’t _tell_ us what happened-”

Five put his hand up, silencing her instantly. “Don’t ever rumor me again, Allison, or you’ll regret it.”

He stepped into his room, closing the door in Allison’s face.

Her hurt expression was the last thing he saw.

* * *

Word must have gotten around after his confrontation with Allison, because immediately afterwards Luther began avoiding him like the plague.

Allison had taken to ignoring him, more out of awkwardness than anything, whereas Luther would send him suspicious glances from across the room whenever he was reminded of Five’s existence. He had always been overprotective of Allison, and Five’s two recent outbursts directed towards her had managed to chill the relationship between them and Five.

The tension between them was palpable, and with every day that passed the chasm only grew wider.

Five allayed his guilt with the logical conclusion that the more Allison avoided him, the less likely she would be to rumor him out of frustration.

It was easy to set aside the remorse he had felt in the name of self preservation. In fact, it was even easier to ignore the situation when he had other, more pressing matters on his mind.

 _I_ ' _m waiting for you._

Ben’s - no, the monster’s words played in Five’s head like a broken record. He couldn’t stop seeing Ben’s glassy eyes, couldn’t stop hearing the snarling, hoarse voice emitted from his brother’s mouth.

The beast followed him in the halls, in the skin of his brother Ben, and Five couldn’t escape him.

Ben was everywhere.

He was at breakfast, lunch and dinner sitting across from Five. He was in training, he was in their classes, he was playing with the other siblings. He slept in the room across from Five.

Five knew that the monster wasn’t his brother, and vice versa, but as the days wore on and his room slowly became filled with spores in his mind and the darkness began to creep in again ever so slowly, he struggled to differentiate the two beings.

Ben was doing to die. Ben was going to kill him. The monster was going to kill him.

Five distracted himself with training, and with going outside to enjoy the sunlight, something he had always taken for granted.

Whenever he had a spare moment he sequestered himself on the roof, letting the sun beat down on him and feeling renewed by the heat.

It was the only peaceful moment of his day.

The only other time he was truly alone was at night, in his bedroom with the lights switched on.

During one of the nights when he was sleeping through fitful dreams, he awoke in his room to a strange shuffling sound. It was still dark outside, but his room was illuminated by the ceiling light.

As he turned to stare at the door, he was struck by the crippling paranoia that he was back in the other world. That the monster was about to come crashing through the door, tentacles reaching to wrap around him and tear him to pieces, its huge body forcing itself through his bedroom door and ripping out the door frame from the walls.

He stared for several minutes at the door, breathing heavily and gripping his blanket close to him, but nothing happened.

Instead he heard a soft scraping sound.

It was as if someone was standing outside his door and tapping on the wood.

He lay there listening, hands tangled in his blanket until finally the tapping stopped and the shuffling slowly faded into silence. It took even longer for Five’s heart to stop pounding against his chest.

The next day, the moment he had a spare hour to himself, he escaped straight to the roof while the others weren’t looking. He sat in his usual place against the wall, in the shade under the beating sun. He had come up here to escape his brothers and sisters and their questioning glances, the attempts to talk to him about the increasing distance between them.

At least, Vanya and Ben were showing concern. Klaus seemed content to let Five be, while Diego was growing increasingly annoyed with him, and Allison and Luther were still not speaking to him.

As he let himself get lost under the rays of the sun, he heard the crunching of footsteps as someone approached him.

“Why are you avoiding me?”

Five glanced up from where he was writing in his notebook, and found himself face to face with the person he’d been avoiding for the past few weeks. 

Ben was standing a few feet in front of him, looking down to where Five was sitting cross legged on the floor. His knees were slightly scuffed and his hair was in disarray.

Five swallowed, fighting the urge to leave even as anxiety began to crawl through his chest.

“How did you find me?” he asked, masking his fear with annoyance. He didn’t want Ben to know that his very presence sent Five’s pulse rocketing sky high.

“Klaus saw you here the other day. He comes up here to smoke sometimes.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Five muttered, rolling his eyes. “Can’t you see I want to be alone?”

“You _always_ want to be alone lately,” Ben said, taking a step forward.

Five jumped up to a standing position, gripping his book tightly in his hand. They were in an open space, but Ben was in between himself and the exit, and Five didn’t fancy himself a good enough sprinter to outrun the monster if it was unleashed.

Not that he thought Ben would do that to him, but the irrational fear continued to lurk in his mind.

“What’s wrong with wanting a little peace and quiet?”

Ben made a frustrated noise. “You’re not doing this because you want peace and quiet. You’re doing this because you want to get away from all of us. Why are you avoiding everyone?”

Five leaned back against the wall, putting his hands in his pockets and closing them into fists.

“I’m not avoiding anyone,” he said, lying through bared teeth. “Unless you haven’t noticed, Ben, our entire days revolve around each other, so _excuse me_ if I want some alone time once in a while.”

“That’s different, that’s because Dad is forcing us together. You…you used to hang out with us in other ways, and talk to us about things other than training. Vanya said you’ve barely said a word to her, and you know she doesn’t train with us.”

Five felt guilt pounding in his chest at the accusation.

It was true; he hadn’t spoken much to Vanya lately. He hadn’t spoken to any of them really.

How could Five say that he could barely speak to Vanya because she was still close with Ben, and the very presence of his brother plunged Five back into the other world; that he couldn’t bring himself to be near Allison, and by extension Luther, because he was frightened that she might rumor the truth out of him? How could he say that it was easier to just ignore Klaus and Diego by pretending that he had never gotten along with them in the first place, because he didn’t want them to see his weaknesses?

Worst of all when he looked at Ben, all he could see was the beast inside of his brother watching his every move.

“Yeah well, they’ll get used to it,” he said, shrugging. “People grow up, people change; that’s life.”

“You’re just dancing around the question. What even happened to you while you were gone? You were fine for a few weeks and then-”

“Jesus Christ, not this again,” Five interrupted, but Ben pushed on.

“Is it because of what I said? About…about the monster?”

Five hiccuped a choked breath, turning away so Ben couldn’t see his face. _Screw this_ , he thought viciously, _I_ _’m getting out of here._ He clenched his fists and pushed, waiting for that familiar burst of feeling.

Nothing happened. No flicker of blue light, no pull of energy, no teleportation. Only a rush of adrenaline and dizziness that hit him hard enough to make him sway on his feet.

He blinked back the sensation, but he found himself struggling to take a deep breath to calm his swaying. Ben’s hand reached out to clasp around his wrist, the touch somehow icy despite the warm weather.

“Five? Are you okay?”

“Don’t touch me!” Five snapped, angry and terrified, shoving Ben back hard in his panic to get away.

He watched as Ben’s feet tripped over themselves and he fell back heavily onto the ground, catching himself with his palms. He cried out at the impact, and when he lifted his hands Five could see that they were scraped up and bleeding.

He stepped to the side and strode past Ben quickly, his cheeks hot with mortification and self-hatred. Five sped down the stairs until he reached his room, closing the door behind him.

As he was locking the handle he glanced down at his arm and froze. There was a ring of bruises around his wrist, dark and purple and covering almost half of his forearm. It looked like a thick band had been wrapped around his forearm.

It was nothing like a hand print.

* * *

The shuffling and scraping continued outside Five’s door every night as he lay awake staring at the ceiling light.

He felt like he was losing himself in memories of his time in the other world. He was no longer human; he was a Morlock, wandering dark tunnels underground and searching for light.

His skin was becoming pale once again as the insomnia persisted, and the shadows under his eyes were like dark bruises. He looked like a ghostly figure wandering the halls of the Academy.

Five’s mission to push everyone away became easier as he succumbed to his mood swings, losing his temper with everyone and anyone who dared to talk to him. He berated and sneered at them for their idiocy, and when they snapped back he only insulted them further.

The farther away they were, the less questions they would ask him and the easier it would be to pretend that nothing was wrong.

He refused to use his powers during training or anywhere else, back talking every time Reginald demanded that he demonstrate his teleportation and earning himself multiple drills as additional punishment. His bones ached, his muscles screamed for mercy and head pounded constantly, but anything was better than the others finding out that he couldn’t use his powers.

With embarrassing ease, he managed to distance himself from the group enough that they no longer tried to talk to him anymore. He knew that they thought he was arrogant and stuck up, but he needed to protect them from the truth.

Even though Five was surrounded by his family, he felt alone.

After a considerable amount of time, Reginald called him for his usual special training. It came as somewhat of a surprise since Reginald had not suggested it since Five had returned. Five had a feeling the delay was less out of the kindness of his heart, and more to give Reginald the time to observe the changes in Five since coming back from his little excursion.

“I can’t help but notice, Number Five, the absence of your powers in our most recent training sessions.”

Reginald’s shoes tapped on the ground as he walked, his cane held firmly by his side. Being a tall man, his strides were quick and long; Five struggled to keep up with him without jogging.

“Yes well, maybe you just haven’t been paying attention,” Five said. They reached the elevator to the basement and Reginald stood, turning to face the doors and pressing the button to lead them to the lower levels. Five settled in next to him, his nerves frayed as he wondered what the hell his father had in store for him.

“Impertinent as always, I see,” Reginald responded, barely ruffled by Five’s insolence. “It seems that your humility was merely temporary. No matter, your special training will allow you to transcend that barrier and regain the use of your powers.”

“My powers are fine.”

“Nonsense!” Reginald said scornfully. “If your powers were _fine_ as you say, then you would be using them!”

As the elevators stopped and the doors opened, Reginald stepped outside and began to make his way down the hall. As they walked, Five couldn’t help but look around at the metal doors and stone walls and be reminded of why he never spent time in this horrible place.

It reminded him of a prison, only even more barren and dreary. He wasn’t even sure what Reginald intended for this place, however he was certain that it was nothing good.

After a few seconds Reginald stopped in front of a locked metal door, which from the outside looked like the entrance to a bunker.

“I have not yes made use of this room; it was built specifically for your powers. Considering what you told me of your stay in this other dimension, I’m sure that this environment will breed familiarity.”

Five furrowed his brow. “What are you talking about? Familiarity to what?”

Reginald pulled open the door, gesturing for Five to walk inside.

He peered into the room, and saw nothing.

It was almost pitch black inside, illuminated only by the dim hallway lights which revealed nothing but a stone floor and metal walls. The rest was shrouded in darkness.

It couldn’t have been bigger than his room. In fact it was barely bigger than a storage cupboard. Five’s skin crawled as he realized what Reginald was referring to when he had mentioned Five’s time in the other world.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, Dad, don’t-you can’t be serious-”

“No need for dramatics, Number Five,” Reginald said, reaching up to grip Five’s arm. It was like a vice burning into his skin. “You merely have to teleport out of this room; a simple task considering the extent of your abilities.”

Like he was under a spell, Five slowly walked into the room. His feet scraped against the floor, tiny pebbles skittering around into the room.

When he was fully inside, Reginald closed the door and the room was bathed in complete darkness. 

With trembling hands Five reached out blindly, until he was touching the metal wall. He slowly began to make his way around the room, feeling for the presence of anything other than smooth metal. He could hear only his breathing coming in short, panicked gasps as he made his way around the room and back to the door.

“Open the door,” he said, nearly choking through his panic. Nobody responded, and he had no doubt that his father had already walked away entirely.

Five began to bang on the door with enough strength to bruise, punching at the metal and crying out as it sent reverberations up his arm.

“Open the door. Open the door- _open the fucking door, please!_ ”

Nothing answered except the echo of his fists against the metal. He pounded against the door so hard he could feel blood streaming down his hands and arms.

Not a single sliver of light streamed in from the hallways, and his eyes could not adjust to the darkness because there was _nothing_ except for darkness around him. Sweat was trickling down his forehead and the back of his head, and his whole body trembled as he struggled to breathe through his terror.

He was back there; back in that storage cupboard, back in that world that he thought he had escaped, back in the world of monsters at every turn and nothing but darkness and death. There was no escape from the terror; he was trapped and alone.

He couldn’t breathe; he was dying.

Five slid down the wall, reaching up to tug at his tie and loosen it around his neck before clawing open his shirt collar and popping out the top buttons.

“Fuck, _fuck_ , just fucking… _focus_ ,” he whimpered to himself, blinking back tears. It was reminiscent of his first few days in the other world, where he had begged and pleaded for his powers to work, but they had failed him over and over again.

 _Why couldn_ _’t he teleport?_

He knew why. It was because he was afraid; afraid that the next time he traveled Ben’s monster would be waiting; afraid that it would simply reach out and pluck him from the air; afraid that a simple miscalculation would land him back in hell with no escape.

He clenched his fists, trying to force himself to draw upon his powers and teleport the hell out of there, but it was no use. There wasn’t even a fizzle of blue to help light up the room.

In the silence he could only hear his wheezing breaths, feel every trickle of cold sweat on him and the slowly constricting walls around him. It felt like he was being crushed, and he could do nothing to stop it.

He lost all sense of time. Hours must have passed, but it felt like days. Every second was torture. He needed to relieve himself, but he wasn’t quite ready to bear the sting of humiliation if Reginald found out that he had pissed on the floor rather than teleport.

_“I’m waiting for you.”_

Five jerked his head up at the sound, searching around desperately even though it was still completely black.

“B-Ben?” he stammered, although he knew it wasn’t Ben.

_“I’m waiting for you, Five.”_

He could see a green light glowing in the corner of the room, and spores growing on the walls. They were pulsating, flashing, and as he stared a tentacle emerged and began to reach for him.

_“I’m watching you-”_

Five’s body reacted for him, and he teleported unwillingly.

He landed heavily on his feet, stumbling forward and slamming into something hard that shook under him. The light from the ceiling assaulted him and he reached up to cover his eyes instinctively as white spots danced around his vision.

He could hear the sound of something crashing onto the floor, and after a few seconds when his eyesight had adjusted, he realized that he was in his father’s study.

His father sat at the desk, scrutinizing him with a critical gaze.

“Well, Number Five, I’m highly disappointed,” he said, unperturbed by the mess on his desk. “You’ve wasted several hours on what should have been a five second task.”

Five huffed, still panting for breath as the adrenaline rush he’d been experiencing in that room began to simmer down.

“In any case, it is clear to me that you still have full use of your powers. I expect you to to have no issues using them tomorrow in training.”

“ _Fuck you_ ,” Five said harshly. Now that the fear had seeped away he was burning with fury. “I’m not afraid of you. I’ve seen and survived monsters that would tear you apart in seconds. You can’t make me do anything. If I don’t want to use my powers, then you can’t make me.”

“Your refusal to use your powers only makes you a burden to your siblings,” Reginald said, unimpressed. “Frankly, it also makes you worthless to the Academy.”

Five turned to leave, his eyes burning and his head pounding. As he left the study, he made sure to slam the door as hard as he could.

* * *

Five never mentioned the special training, and neither did Reginald, but he knew that if he didn’t manage to use his powers soon enough he would be sent back to solitary confinement.

When his father left for a business meeting one day, he breathed a sigh of relief knowing that it would be a full day without special training. He had wanted to go to his usual spot on the rooftop, where no one had bothered him after the incident with Ben, but it had been raining all morning

Instead he was content to sit in the kitchen, slowly chewing on his marshmallow and peanut butter sandwich while Grace pottered around. She was humming to herself as she cleaned up after their dinner, carefully placing the dishes away and cleaning the countertops.

He was spending a surprising amount of time with Grace; she served as a reminder that he wasn’t completely alone, but she also had the benefit of not asking him any questions about his behavior. She asked after his health, but didn’t push if he refused to answer, reverting back to her brilliant smile and supportive remarks.

Grace was harmless, as long as he didn’t share anything with her that she might be obliged to relay back to Reginald.

“Do you want anything else, Five? Maybe some juice?” she asked.

He shook his head, swallowing down the piece of sandwich he’d been chewing for about five minutes. It tasted like cardboard to him. Just as he was forcing down another bite, Klaus and Diego entered the room; pausing when they caught sight of him.

Klaus immediately slid into the chair next to him, placing his chin in his hand.

“Hey Five, bro, my main man Five; we’ve been looking for you,” he said, grinning widely at Five. “The rest of us are going to sneak out to Griddy’s since Dad’s out for the night. You wanna join?”

“No thanks,” Five said automatically, not even glancing at him.

Diego snorted, crossing his arms. “T-t-told you he wouldn’t, Klaus. Now let’s go, the others are waiting.”

“Aw, come on, Five!” Klaus said, his face falling. “What’s the deal, man? You never hang out with us anymore.”

“Then maybe you should take the hint.”

“Jeez, ouch!” Klaus put a mocking hand over his heart, but Five could see a flash of hurt on his face. Not that Klaus would ever admit it out loud. “Okay fine, message received; we’ll leave you alone. But I’m taking this.”

He snagged the other half of the sandwich and stood up, waving it teasingly in front of Five.

Five couldn’t care less, simply pushing his now empty plate away and turning back to his book. He hadn’t particularly been focused on reading it, but it was a good way to pretend he was doing something so he could ignore the others.

After a few seconds of being ignored, Klaus let the sandwich drop back onto the table in defeat and wandered back out of the kitchen, leaving Five alone with Diego.

When Diego didn’t move, Five sighed loudly.

“You’ve got something to say?” he asked flatly.

“Yeah, I do. You’ve become such an asshole lately,” Diego accused, scowling down at Five. “Ben told us what happened on the roof. Why don’t you w-w-w-” He took a deep breath curling his fists around, and glared down at the table in frustration.

Five rolled his eyes, bitterness rising up in his throat.

“When have you ever thought I wasn’t an asshole, _Number Two?_.”

Diego flushed; out of all of them, he hated being referred to by his number the most.

“W-w-what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Not surprised I need to spell it out for you, moron,” Five continued, wishing he didn’t sound so hateful. “You’ve always thought I was an asshole, and that I was stuck up.”

Diego scowled, although his eyes were suspiciously bright. “You are stuck up! You always think y-y-you’re better than us and you w-w-won’t even hang around us anymore.”

“If you hate me so much, why do you even want me around?” His voice was getting louder and louder.

“Maybe I don’t!” Diego yelled back, his face turning red with anger. “Maybe I liked it better when you were gone!”

“Oh, I bet you _loved_ that. I bet you wish I was _dead,_ then you wouldn’t have to deal with me right now!”

“Whoa, whoa guys! What the hell is going on?”

They both turned to see Klaus walking back in, wide eyed and looking between the two of them in shock. It was obvious he’d been drawn back by the sound of their argument.

They turned back to face each other, and Five was shocked to see tears streaming down Diego’s face. Diego quickly reached up to brush them away and whirled around, marching towards the door.

“Come on, Klaus. We’re going to fucking Griddy’s,” he spat, grabbing Klaus by the arm and pulling him out of the kitchen. Klaus followed without complaint, shooting one last confused glance at Five before disappearing out the door.

* * *

“Five?”

Five glanced up from where he was sat in the living room, his eyes blurring over the pages of the book he wasn’t really reading. Vanya was standing in the entrance of the living room, looking like she was weighing up whether to approach him or not.

“Yes, Vanya?” he asked. She flinched slightly at the impatience in his tone, but he couldn’t help it; he was exhausted after his fight with Diego and just wanted to be left alone. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at Griddy’s with the others?”

Vanya bit her lip, approaching tentatively until she was standing just behind the couch.

“I wasn’t invited,” she admitted in a whisper.

Of course they hadn’t; Five was the only one who ever invited Vanya with them when they would sneak out.

He reached up to scrub at his face tiredly.

“Right, sorry,” he muttered.

“Are you okay?” Vanya asked, her hand reaching out as if to touch his shoulder. She paused, seemed to reconsider, and pulled her hand back so it rested awkwardly by her side.

“I’m fine. What do you want?”

“I was wondering if you wanted to listen to me play? I’ve been practicing that piece you liked. You said you wanted to hear it again once I could play it by memory.”

Five felt something sticking in his throat, like a rock he had swallowed.

Vanya looked so hopeful; he had heard her practicing the piece diligently every day.

He wanted to say yes; he wanted to apologize for what a shit brother he had been lately to all of them, but especially to her. He wanted to take her hand and tell her the truth; that he was broken and fucked up inside; that he was weak and cowardly.

Five wanted to tell her everything, but he couldn’t bring himself to even speak the words. The thought of reliving it, any of it, made him feel violently ill.

Vanya deserved more than this rotting shell of a brother who was slowly driving a deliberate wedge between himself and his siblings. She deserved more than a coward who couldn’t even bring himself to warn his own brother that he would eventually be torn apart by the monster inside him.

“Sorry Vanya, not today,” he said weakly, giving her a tight smile. He quickly buried himself back in his book so that he didn’t have to look at the disappointment in her face.

She left him alone and he tried to ignore the whispering in his mind and the spores growing in the corners of the walls.

He was living on so little sleep that he was beginning to hallucinate quite regularly. It was just another messed up thing for him to live with now.

After a few hours, he could hear the sound of the others returning from their trip at Griddy’s. It was way past curfew and none of them were being particularly successful in keeping quiet, but when Reginald was away Pogo tended to be a bit more flexible with their freedom.

He picked himself up off the couch and sneaked back upstairs before they could see him, intent on not having another loaded confrontation today.

He headed back into his room, changing into his pajamas and climbing into bed. Outside he could hear the others also retreating to their rooms, giggling and shushing each other until finally the last thing he heard was the click of Ben’s door closing. Then there was only silence.

He still couldn’t bring himself to turn off the light, and just lay in bed waiting for sleep to overtake him. If he was lucky, he could get in an hour or two here and there.

After a while, he began to hear the habitual scraping against the door that had become his nighttime companion.

Reginald had said that time travel could mess with his mind.

Five wondered if all of this was simply a hallucination, a nightmare that existed only in his head. Maybe in the process of attempting to time travel he had simply broken his mind completely and built a hellish fantasy that haunted him at every step.

Maybe he was going insane.

The shuffling and scraping outside his room was becoming unbearable. There had not been a single night of peace without this incessant scraping, and try as he might he couldn’t sleep through it.

He squeezed his eyes shut, tossing and turning for several minutes in the dim light of his room until finally he couldn’t take it anymore. He threw the blanket to the side, jumping out of bed and storming over to his room.

He was going to figure out what it was, once and for all.

Wrenching the door open with more force than necessary, he found himself face to face with a familiar figure.

Ben was standing on the other side, his hands limp by his sides. He was dressed in the light blue Academy pajamas, barefoot and messy-haired, and his eyes were staring at the ground in front of him.

“Ben,” Five said, looking around. There was no one else in the hallway except for his brother. “Why aren’t you in your room? Are you…have you been standing outside my room every night?”

Ben blinked, looking strangely disoriented as he swayed on his feet. When he looked at Five he frowned, blinking heavily as if to clear his vision.

“I don’t…I think so,” he responded slowly. His voice was slurred and slow, like he was struggling to speak. “I don’t really know what I’m doing here…”

As Five watched in horror, something black began to trickle down from his nose and onto his upper lip. It looked like the same blood which had spilled from the monster when Five had stabbed it.

“Ben, you’re bleeding.”

Ben reached up to touch his lip, his fingers coming away wet and blackened. He stared at it, unseeing and unconcerned.

“That’s weird,” he muttered.

“Do you want me to call Mom? I think-”

“It wanted to see you.”

Five blinked, the words dying in his throat. What the hell did _that_ mean?

Ben moved forward, and Five stepped back instinctively. He stumbled over his feet until the back of his knees hit the bed and he landed on the mattress. He reached down to grasp at his blanket, in the hopes of any form of comfort.

“Wh-what?” he stammered, an icy coldness gripping his chest. “What are you talking about?”

Ben’s eyes were vacant as he spoke, devoid of any emotion. The black blood continued to stream down his face, over his chin until it was dripping down his pajamas and onto the floor.

“It saw you,” he said, blinking slowly. “It saw you opening the portal before you jumped out of me. It knows what you can do.”

“Ben, stop,” Five whispered, squeezing his fingers around the blanket so hard his knuckles ached. He was scared, “What are you saying-”

“You can help it escape, Five. You can open the portal for it. It just needs a little bit of help.”

He was lifting his hands, fingers brushing against the edge of his pajama top lightly. Five could see the buttoned top rippling with movement, as if being caressed by the wind, but there was no breeze in this room.

“What are you doing, Ben, are you crazy-"

“ _You just need to come back to me, Five_ ,” Ben snarled, but it wasn’t Ben’s voice. It was a harsh, guttural voice that was sharp with rage and desire. “ _You need to help me get out, I need you to help me get out-_ _”_ He twisted his fingers tightly around the material, drawing it up.

“ _Ben, don_ _’t!”_ Five choked, scrambling back against the wall.

Ben lifted the pajama top and his monster’s tentacles shot out of him, launching themselves towards Five.

He jumped without thinking.

The last thing he saw were the tentacles reaching for him through the circle of blue, before he was suddenly falling in the darkness.

He landed in a heap, cracking his head back against something hard enough for him to see stars, and whatever he landed on was moving and flailing around.

“ _Ow!_ Fuck! What the _fuck-_ ”

He was shoved off, and before he could react he rolled and landed on something solid, this time smacking his face painfully. He lay there for a few seconds, ears ringing and eyes adjusting to the darkness.

A light was switched on above him, and when he looked up he could see Diego’s face looming over him from where he was sat on the bed. He looked livid at the rude awakening, although his eyes were still hooded from sleepiness.

He scowled down at Five, a red mark on his forehead where they had collided. Five was sure he had an identical mark on the back of his head and the beginnings of a bump.

“What the _hell_ was that, Five?” Diego hissed. He glanced over at his alarm clock. “It’s three in the morning! You couldn’t have knocked instead, you asshole?”

Five opened his mouth, either to make up a perfectly good reason why he had landed on Diego’s bed at three in the morning, or to just snap back irritably, but he was interrupted.

Above them, they could hear a crash, followed by the sound of items breaking and glass shattering.

Then, silence.

Both of them were staring up at the ceiling, and after a few seconds where nothing else was heard Five dropped his gaze and was met with a confused look.

“W-w-w-” Diego stopped, twisting his face in vexation as he usually did when he struggled to speak. Five knew what he meant though.

“It was Ben,” he said, grimacing when his voice came out as a shaky whisper. “He was…sleep-walking and he let the monster out by accident.” It sounded so much like a bare-faced lie he was sure that Diego would call him out on it.

Instead he just rubbed at his eyes sleepily and sighed.

“Whatever, sounds like he’s done now. I’m still mad at you so you can screw off.”

He collapsed back onto his bed and out of sight from where Five was laying, then switched off the lamp, bathing the room in darkness.

Five got up onto his hands and knees, taking a deep breath to steady himself and calm his racing heartbeat. The shock of his landing had delayed his reaction slightly, but now in the silence and the darkness it all came crashing down on him like a wave.

The monster wanted him.

It wanted to pull him back into that other world, force him to open the portal and then without a doubt rip him to shreds once he’d outlived his usefulness.

It had used Ben like some sick human puppet, something Five had never seen before. Ben had always been able to tuck the monster back into his stomach, even if he didn’t have control of it when it was unleashed.

He’d never once known of the beast being able to control his brother.

It had come so close to taking him. He could barely think about it without feeling sick. Exhaustion swept over him and he collapsed against the side of the bed, slumping against it as he tried to get his breath under control.

 _Fuck_ , that had been close.

“Five, what are you still doing here?” The light illuminated the room once more, and Diego’s sleepy and confused face reappeared.

Five kept his mouth shut, knowing that if he tried to speak he would potentially be sick.

“You okay? You’re _shaking._ W-w-was it really that scary?” Diego asked, all traces of annoyance gone.

Five began to shake his head, before pausing and nodding tersely.

He hated to admit weakness, hated anyone seeing him like this, but a small part of him was afraid that Diego might kick him out of his room if he said that he was completely fine.

The monster could be lurking in the hallways, looking for him, waiting for the opportunity for him to be alone.

He was powerless against it. Especially when he couldn’t even teleport of his own volition.

“Do you want to…sleep here?” Diego asked begrudgingly after several minutes of silence.

Five wanted to laugh, not because any of this was funny, but because he had always prided himself in being the most mature out of all of his siblings. Diego’s reluctant offer was a clear indication of who was the more mature person at this very moment.

Five couldn’t bring himself to ask for help just yet, but he could at least be grateful when it was extended.

He pushed himself up on legs which felt like lead, and climbed into the bed next to Diego, who was looking at him with a note of suspicion. He was too tired to say anything, and simply flopped onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. He closed his eyes, trying to focus on slowing down his breathing and remind himself that he was still alive.

Diego pulled the blanket from under Five, before draping it over him so that they were both covered. He reached over to switch off the lamp, however Five took his wrist.

“Could we sleep with the lamp light on?” Five asked.

Diego scowled at him. “Hell no; I need darkness to sleep. You want a night light, go bother Luther.”

Then they were in darkness once again. Diego turned on his side with his back facing Five, curling up under the blanket and mumbling a grouchy ‘ _good night_ ’.

Five swallowed, fingers twisting in the blankets nervously as he awaited the inevitable anxiety that came from being in the darkness. He waited for the spores and the green glowing light to start appearing in the corner, for the whisper of the monster to start emanating from the walls.

They never came.

Instead his eyes eventually adjusted to the sliver of moonlight streaming in through the curtains, and the only sound he could hear was Diego’s steady breathing.

After several minutes, exhaustion overtook him and he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a dark time for Five, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel. He just needs to learn how to ask for help <3  
> Big thanks to @non-plutonian-druid for kindly beta-ing this chapter!  
> As always, comments are appreciated :)


	5. The Bloodlust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all of your wonderful comments! If you're still reading this far, this chapter was never meant to exist and the fic was supposed to end at four chapters. Like Ben's monsterthis beast of a fic is out of my control and to be honest, I just felt like I wanted even more sibling interactions than I'd planned, which just started an avalanche of new scenes. I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> TW: Panic attacks, vomiting, descriptions of violence and blood

Five awoke in stages, slowly becoming aware of his surroundings. He was wrapped in something warm and comfortable and he could feel the bright sunlight beating down on his face. When he opened his eyes, he squinted at the brightness streaming in through the curtains.

He could barely remember the last time he had slept through the night so peacefully. He was strangely refreshed and sluggish at the same time, blinking the sleep out of his eyes as he tried to make sense of why his room looked so unfamiliar.

Only when he saw Diego playing darts in the corner did he remember what had happened.

The vision of those familiar tentacles reaching out sent him slumping back onto the bed heavily, drawing Diego’s attention.

“You’re awake,” Diego said, barely giving him a glance. He threw the dart, visibly deflating when it bounced off the edge of the board.

Five rubbed at his eyes, blinking out the dryness. “What time is it?” His voice was scratchy and hoarse, like he’d run it through a cheese grater.

“It’s eleven.”

“Wait, what? Then how come…”

Diego threw another one. “Apparently Dad’s been held up until tomorrow so Pogo’s giving us the day off.”

The news made Five sigh in relief; he could count on another day without special training. He stretched his arms, listening to the satisfying popping in his bones. Despite what had occurred last night, he was immensely grateful to have slept for as long as he did. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since landing in the other world.

He shifted until he was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching as Diego walked forward to pull his darts out of the board.

“Thanks,” he blurted, before he could stop himself. “For letting me sleep here. I…appreciate it.”

Diego rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I was too tired to kick you out anyway.” As he turned back, Five could still see the slightly reddened mark where he had head butted Diego.

He reached up to touch the back of his head and winced as he hit a sore spot. Shit, that must have been a rude awakening.

“Right, well, thanks anyway. And sorry.”

Diego sent the dart flying into the wall haphazardly, before turning to gaze at him suspiciously. Five couldn’t blame him; it was probably the first proper conversation they had had in weeks, aside from their blowout fight the previous day.

“Sorry for _what_?”

“For head butting you…and for what I said yesterday.”

Diego’s expressed shuttered even as he reached up to touch the red spot automatically. “You called me a moron.”

“Yeah, well, you called me a stuck up asshole.”

“You said I w-w-w-wanted you _dead!_ ” Diego snapped back, hurt underlining his voice.

Five winced. He couldn’t deny that he had been cruel in his accusations, but he still held resentment over the words he had heard Diego speak through the veil.

Out of all of his siblings, Diego had been the most convinced that he was dead or that he had run away and willingly refused to return. The thought that his brother would think so low of him had stung, and he had been stewing in bitterness ever since.

“Right, that was uncalled for. I was just trying to hurt you.”

Diego scoffed. “Yeah well, congratulations, you succeeded.” He looked down at the darts in his hand, rolling them around for a few seconds silently. “What’s even been up with you? You’ve been weird ever since you disappeared; Ben says you don’t even hang around with Vanya anymore, and you’re the only one who ever hangs out with her anyway.”

Before Five could answer, a knock on the door broke the spell between them.

“It’s open!” Diego said.

The door opened to reveal a tired looking Ben, also dressed in his pajamas.

“Hey, Diego, did you borrow my shirt -” he paused in the doorway as his gaze fell upon Five.

Five was paralyzed. He knew, logically, that Ben wasn’t being controlled by the monster right now. His eyes were clear and bright, and when he spoke it was with his normal voice.

But still, all Five could see were the monster’s tentacles.

“I didn’t know you guys hung out,” Ben commented when he had gotten over his surprise. “Five, I knocked on your door but you didn’t respond.”

Five nodded stiffly, unable to stop the shiver running down his spine at those words.

“Yeah, Five slept here,” Diego said, tossing his darts onto the table. “Apparently you tried to kill him last night or something.”

Five jolted. “Diego-”

“Sleep walked into his room and tried to let the monster out, or something like that.” Diego snorted in amusement, reaching down to open his chest of drawers and rummage around. “One second, your shirt’s in here somewhere.”

He was completely oblivious to the stunned atmosphere that followed his words. Five had barely had time to process what had happened last night, never mind try to actually confront Ben about it, and here Diego was just blurting it all out without a care.

He chanced a look over at Ben, who looked like a deer in headlights. His eyes wide with shock as he glanced between the two of them.

“Wh-what? Five, is that true?” His voice was small and scared.

Five said nothing, but his silence was enough of an answer.

“Found it!” Diego said triumphantly, pulling the shirt out from his drawer. He threw it to Ben, who made no move to catch it. Instead he disappeared down the hall, his footsteps hurried until they faded into silence. “Uh…Ben?”

Clearing his throat, Five pushed himself off the bed and headed out.

“He left,” he said. He paused at the doorway. “Thanks again for letting me sleep here.”

Before Diego could say anything, he swept out of the room. There was no one else in the hall even though all of the doors were open, which meant that everyone must have already been up and about. He took the opportunity to head to his room and change into his usual outfit.

Five had spent the last few weeks in a haze of sleeplessness and paranoia, his mind constantly jumping back to his time in the monster’s world and his body wading through a swamp of exhaustion. The monster and darkness had followed him everywhere he went, in the skin of Ben; watching and waiting for the right opportunity to strike.

He had assumed that simply staying out of the monster’s way during missions would be enough to protect himself from the beast; after all, Ben still controlled the portal and he only let the monster out when it was absolutely necessary. Even Reginald didn’t allow Ben to unleash the monster during training for fear of it ripping his precious little child soldiers to shreds.

The events of the previous night, however, had changed everything.

It was clear that the monster was able to use Ben like some sick human puppet; enough to make him say words that weren’t his own. Enough to make him unleash the beast against his will.

If Five hadn’t forced himself to blink out of there, he would have been dragged kicking and screaming back into that portal. The thought was terror inducing.

He had never known the beast to take control of his brother like that.

As he wandered down to the kitchen to grab himself some food for breakfast he could hear music drifting down the halls; Vanya must be playing her violin in the living room. She liked to play there when their father was away as the sound traveled better than in her tiny room.

While he fixed himself up a bowl of cereal, Five listened to the melancholy melody floating across the Academy.

He missed Vanya; she had been his confidante and closest friend before he had sent himself to hell, but now they barely spoke. It was Five’s fault, of course, he had pushed her away in his increasing paranoia until now she no longer even tried to talk to him. Instead she spent her time alone and isolated, exactly as Reginald intended.

It made Five’s blood boil to see her being treated like a nobody, just because she didn’t have powers like the rest of them.

As he finished up his breakfast, Five screwed up the courage to go and speak to Vanya.

He washed his plate and spoon, stacking them onto the dish rack before turning to walk out of the kitchen. He found himself face to face with Diego, who was standing in the doorway with an unreadable look on his face.

Diego was a holding a football at his side, something which they definitely didn’t own at the Academy.

“Where did you get that?” Five asked.

Diego shifted to his other foot. “Klaus and I w-w-went down to the school and broke into their gym a few months ago. We may have left with more things than when we arrived.”

“That sounds pretty par for the course for Klaus, but I’m surprised at you, Diego,” Five said, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “I never pegged you for a rebel.”

“Yeah, well, I have my m-m-m-moments.”

They stared each other down for a few seconds, until Diego cleared his throat and glared down at the floor.

“I was wondering if you wanted to play football. Together.”

“You want _me_ to play a sport that involves kicking an object into a goal with _you_ , a person who can literally change the trajectory of a moving object.”

Diego stuck out his chin defiantly. “Yeah. You got a problem with that?”

“How do I know you won’t just cheat and use your powers?”

“That sounds like something you would do, not me.”

In the distance, the music stopped and in the ensuing silence Five realized that Vanya must have finished her practice session. If he wanted to catch her before he lost his nerve, he would need to move now.

He opened his mouth to decline the offer, but suddenly caught sight of Diego’s fingers drumming against the football.

Diego was _nervous_.

“Okay, fine,” Five said reluctantly. “Just for an hour…since you didn’t make fun of me for last night.”

He watched as Diego’s face became a strange mix of excited and surprised that he was clearly trying to squash down, until finally he settled on shrugging indifferently.

“Fine, w-w-w-whatever.”

One hour turned into two hours.

Two hours then turned into several hours, until Five and Diego found themselves playing all throughout the afternoon.

They stopped for a while to make sandwiches and sit out in the sun, Diego chatting about some of the little events that had occurred in the past few weeks. They skirted around the heavier subjects with ease; Diego never brought up that the obvious reason Five missed these things was because of his own distant attitude. Five never mentioned any of his own issues, choosing instead to bask in the warm sunlight and enjoy the light conversation.

When the sun had set, Diego picked up the football and announced himself the clear winner.

“I’m amazed you even managed to stop one of my goals, never mind four,” he teased as Five picked himself off the ground after having collapsed from tiredness. He had spent the last hour as a failed goalkeeper, much to Diego’s amusement.

“Shut up, asshole. I know you used your powers to hit me in the face. Once I would believe, but _three_ times?” He rubbed at his nose, which was still stinging from the impact.

“Nah, you just have a big head; it’s hard to miss.”

As they headed back inside down the halls of the Academy, Five could hear the sound of the others playing in the living room. He slowed down considerably as he realized that Diego was heading towards the source of the sound/

He veered off towards his room without warning.

“Hey, what are you-”

Five waved his hand dismissively and continued marching up the stairs. As he turned the corner he could see Diego’s confused and upset expression before he disappeared from view.

He knew it was hurtful of him to leave so abruptly, but the thought that he might run into Ben without warning was too much for him to handle.

Whatever. He’d held up his end of the bargain and played with Diego that afternoon. He owed his brother nothing else.

* * *

Five awoke to the feeling of someone shaking his shoulder gently. When he rolled over to look up he saw Grace standing over him with a soft smile on her face.

“Mom?” he muttered, rubbing at his eyes.

“Wake up, sleepy head. You fell asleep on the kitchen table,” she said quietly. Five looked around blearily. “Did you teleport here by accident?”

“What? No, I haven’t done that since I was a kid.”

“You’re still a kid, Five,” Grace corrected.

Five rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean, Mom.” He sat up, grimacing as his neck popped from having been stuck in an uncomfortable position for a few hours. It hadn’t been the best sleep, filled with night terrors and darkness. “No, I…I just couldn’t sleep.”

In truth, he had escaped down here the moment he had heard Ben and the others retiring to bed.

The fear that he would hear that scraping sound again, knowing that Ben was standing outside his door while potentially possessed by his monster, was all-consuming. Five had high tailed it out of there and run down to the kitchen, where he knew he wouldn’t be caught by Reginald upon his return.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Do you want something to help you sleep? I can give you half a sleeping pill.”

Five shook his head. Aside from his concern about Grace’s willingness to medicate her children - something he was sure that Reginald had programmed into her - the last thing he needed was to be drowsy if the monster managed to control Ben long enough to find him.

“No thanks, I’ll just go upstairs,” he said.

“Let me walk you,” Grace offered, helping him up off the chair.

They walked up side by side, with Grace’s hand gently resting against his back. In another lifetime, Five would have shrugged her off and complained that he wasn’t a child needing to be led. Now, having lived four months alone in hell without her kindness, he was willing to let her dote on him. He knew it made her happy, in her own manufactured way.

As they neared his room, his legs began to feel like lead.

“Five? What’s wrong?”

He stopped at the foot of the stairs, looking up at the dark hallway.

His room was up there, and so was the monster.

“I…” The words were stuck in his throat. “Mom, I can’t.”

“Why not?” Grace reached up to touch his face gently. “Is your room too cold?”

“No, it’s not that.” Five couldn’t hold back the trembling in his voice; he couldn’t manage this alone anymore. “Something’s trying to kill me, and I just know it’s going to get me when I’m alone or when I’m sleeping. I can’t go to my room, Mom, I just-”

Grace reached up to put her hands on his cheeks, interrupting his desperate ramble and forcing him to look her in the eyes.

“Five, dear, you need to slow down. Take deep breaths,” she instructed. She glanced around them, before moving to sit on the stairs and motioning for him to do the same. He did so reluctantly, forcing his breathing to slow down until his heart was no longer stuttering in his chest. “Now, I can tell you’re scared.”

“That’s an understatement,” Five muttered, running a hand through his hair and tugging at it hard enough to hurt. Grace tutted disapprovingly, reaching up to unclench his fingers.

“Don’t do that, Five, you’ll hurt yourself.” Reluctantly, he let go and she patted down the stray hairs that he had been gripping. “Now, tell me what’s scaring you.”

He couldn’t even begin to think how he would explain this to his robot mother.

“When I was…missing, I was in a place with _things_ that wanted to kill me,” he began, choosing his words carefully. He didn’t want to say anything that could eventually be used against him by his father. “I thought I’d left them behind when I escaped, but somehow they’ve followed me back here. I can’t let my guard down, because they’ll get me and drag me back and I _can_ _’t_ go back.”

Grace reached her arms around to draw him into a hug, and he let her without complaint.

“But I’m so tired, Mom,” he whispered, closing his eyes and letting his head rest against the crook of her neck. “I’m so tired all the time. I don’t feel like myself anymore. I feel like…a shell of who I was before, and I’m so alone.”

She sighed in exasperation. “Now you’re just being silly. You’re not alone at all, Five; you have your brothers and sisters right here with you. I’m sure they would want to help you.”

“They can’t help me with this, Mom. It’s too dangerous; I can’t risk them getting caught in the middle.”

“That’s understandable, but maybe they can help you in other ways. Like how I help Diego picture words in his head so he makes less mistakes.”

Five nodded slowly, the gears turning in his mind as he processed what Grace was saying. Surprisingly, it actually made sense.

Maybe he didn’t have to turn to his siblings for help with Ben, but he could reach out to them in other ways.

“That’s…actually really helpful,” he admitted. “Thanks, Mom, I think I will. Don’t worry about walking me to bed, I can make my own way.”

Grace beamed at him, helping him to stand and giving him a kiss on the forehead to wish him goodnight. He waited until she had disappeared down the stairs, the light tap-tapping of her heels fading away into silence, before heading over to a door that wasn’t his own.

He knocked lightly on it, and within seconds he could hear the sound of shuffling and sleepy grumbling. The door opened to reveal a tired looking Diego in his pajamas.

“Five? What are you doing here?”

“Is it okay if I sleep here again? I don’t want to go back to my room.”

Diego said nothing for several seconds and Five to steel himself for a rejection. After his rude and dismissive attitude earlier that evening, he wouldn’t be surprised if Diego told him to jump off a bridge.

“Fine, whatever. At least you knocked this time.”

Five could barely hide his surprise as Diego simply turned and crawled back into his bed, curling up under the blankets. He gestured for Five to close the door, which Five did before moving tentatively to slide under the blanket and lay on the outer side of the bed.

“What’s wrong with your own bed?” Diego grumbled, rubbing at his eyes. “Was Ben sleepwalking again?”

“No, just…felt safer here. Last night.”

“Mm, okay. Don’t m-m-make a habit of it though. You’re smaller than Luther, but this bed still isn’t built for two.”

Five scowled. “Don’t worry, I won’t. I’ll go back to my room tomorrow.”

“Whatever, go to sleep.”

* * *

Five hasn’t realized just how much he missed his family.

The lack of sleep had made him inhuman. It had warped his brain. Now, with a several nights of proper sleep behind him, he could think clearly once again.

The monster was slowly but surely extending its hold on his brother somehow, waiting for a time to strike. Five couldn’t let his guard down; it only needed one moment of inattention to wrap around him, and Five didn’t fancy his odds once caught.

His options were limited.

Five could tell Ben and hope that his brother was strong enough to fight back against the monster that he had feared his entire life. Five could fight the monster himself, but he only had access to its tentacles from out here and those weren’t even all of its limbs. He could run away, but that would leave his brother at the mercy of his monster and the rest of his family potentially in danger as well.

Leaving his family in such a dangerous situation wasn’t an option, but neither was confronting the monster. Five only had to think about the beast for his heart rate to speed up and his mind to start whirling; he could not shake the crippling fear that crept up every time he was close to Ben.

As much as Five tried, he couldn’t avoid Ben forever.

The next time they ended up in the same room, it was in the kitchen. Five had been making himself a sandwich for lunch while the others had all been playing.

Reginald was with Allison for special training that day, which meant that the rest of them were free to do as they pleased. What Five wanted was to go out into the courtyard with a sandwich and try not to think about how his own special training was looming over him.

Just as he was putting away the peanut butter, he heard footsteps behind him and felt his skin crawl.

“Hey.”

The knife Five was holding slipped from his hands and clattered to the ground. He fought the instinct to run out of the room as Ben watched him, even though his muscles were coiled and ready for action.

Despite the fact that they were standing at opposite ends of the kitchen, Ben made no move to come any closer. It was as if he were deliberately keeping distance between them.

It told Five only one thing; Ben _knew_.

“Hey to you too,” Five said, once his initial shock wore off. “What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for you.”

Warnings bells went off in Five’s head and he straightened up, fingers gripping the counter nervously. Ben’s eyes widened and he stepped back almost disappearing behind the door frame.

“That’s not what I meant! I mean… _I_ was looking for you, not the…not _it_ _…”_

“So you remember what happened.”

Ben looked utterly miserable. “I thought it was a dream, or a nightmare. I’ve been…losing time since you’ve been back, and I get flashes of standing outside your door. I even dreamed about trying to let the monster out so it could get you. At least, I thought it was a dream until Diego said…what he said.”

“Jesus,” Five muttered, a lump forming in his throat. “Are you…can you fight against it? How is it even controlling you?”

“It can’t control me for long, maybe a few seconds at most but…it’s harder to fight when I’m tired or sleepy. It only really tries when it knows you’re close, and when you’re alone.”

Five’s breath hitched and he struggled to keep his gaze on his brother. They were alone right now.

“It won’t stop talking about you though. It told me where you were.”

“Ben-”

“I haven’t told the others,” Ben said, giving him a weak smile. “I get why you want it to be a secret. They’d probably all be scared of me if they knew what was happening. Fuck, I’m scared of me now.”

“Shit.” Five reached up to rub his face, sweat beading on his temple. “Shit, Ben, I’m sorry-”

“Sorry?” Ben interrupted, scowling at him. “What are you apologizing for? I almost killed you! _I_ _’m_ sorry-”

“Yes, but…”

None of this would have happened if Five had decided to time travel. He wouldn’t have baited the monster; the monster wouldn’t be testing the limits of its control over Ben, and they would all be blissfully ignorant right about now.

“I’ll stay away from you, and from the others,” Ben said, his voice tight. “You shouldn’t have to isolate yourself just because you’re scared of me. It’s not fair; _I_ _’m_ the one who’s the danger to everyone.”

Five shook his head. “What? Ben, that’s not…I’m not doing it because-”

“I couldn’t live with myself if I let it kill you.”

They fell into an uncomfortable silence, both of them equally despondent. Five couldn’t quite place what he was feeling right now, but he hated every second of it.

“But what about you?” Five asked after a long pause. “It’s going to kill you too, eventually.”

Ben shrugged, his expression resigned. “Yeah, probably. I’ve kind of resigned myself to that already.”

With a final small wave he stepped out, leaving Five standing alone in the kitchen and wondering why that conversation had felt so much like a goodbye.

* * *

Despite Ben’s new insistence on cutting himself off from the rest of them after their conversation in the kitchen, Five still kept himself at a distance. Ben’s presence amongst his siblings had only been one factor in his isolation; removing that factor didn’t change the fact that Five was still living with the weight of his four months in hell and struggling to maintain his sanity.

Inevitably, he landed himself back in solitary confinement the next time he refused to use his powers.

While the terror never receded and the hallucinations only grew in the darkness, over time he found different mechanisms for coping with the isolation.

Dolores kept him company. He had left her in that storage cupboard, but somehow she had followed him and was present whenever Reginald put him through his special training. He would talk to her for hours on end; her kind and comforting nature helped to soothe his growing panic as he paced inside the pitch black cell and muttered to himself frantically.

Sometimes, if he spent several hours in there without blinking out, Reginald would open the door. Five would jump at the clanging of the door, shielding his eyes from the light as his father stood in the doorway looking unimpressed.

He would then slam it shut again without a single word.

Reginald would let him starve to death for the sake of being right, so eventually Five would succumb to his fate and teleport.

The mere act of using his powers would send him reeling with stress and panic, his breath trapped in his throat and his hands shaking violently. Sometimes he would land directly into a panic attack and lay on the floor, wheezing and gasping for breath while the world tilted around him.

Occasionally, like today, he would be so nauseous he would puke.

He had landed in Reginald’s empty study when the nausea had hit him, and out of sheer spite had let himself be sick all over his father’s desk. He would get hell for it later, but in that moment he felt so gleefully vindictive it was worth it.

Once he was done he wiped his mouth and crept out of the room, closing the door carefully behind him.

“What are you doing in Dad’s study?”

Five jumped in surprise, whirling around to find a suspicious Luther standing a few feet away with his arms crossed.

“Jesus, Luther!” he hissed, trying to calm his racing heart. “What are you, standing guard?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Five rolled his eyes, tucking his hands into his pockets. “Relax, I blinked there by accident.”

“I thought you weren’t using your powers.”

He huffed in annoyance. It had become obvious to all of his siblings by now that Five wasn’t able to use his powers, as much as he’d tried to hide it. No one had brought it up, mainly because he was still avoiding them, however the glances they gave him during training were hard to miss.

“Well, when the choice is either being locked in a dark cell for hours or using my powers, I guess I can push myself a little bit,” he said bitterly.

Luther’s expression fell. “Is that what Dad is doing during your special training? Locking you up?”

“Does that surprise you, Luther? That dear old Dad would do such a terrible thing to one of his children?”

He was baiting Luther, triggering his instinctive defensiveness that arose whenever anyone spoke unkindly about Reginald Hargreeves. To Five’s immense shock, Luther simply deflated and shook his head.

“No, not really. That sounds…awful. Is that why you’ve been sleeping in Diego’s room the past few days? He said you haven’t slept in your room for over a week.”

 _Damn it, Diego,_ Five thought furiously. He hated how little privacy there was in this damn house.

“That’s none of your business, Luther.”

They stood in awkward silence for a few seconds before Five’s eyes were drawn down to the object that Luther was holding. It was the moon night light that Grace had given to him for their thirteenth birthday; the very same one that Five had taken with him when he had been trapped in the other world.

“What are you doing with that?” he asked.

Luther blushed, looking down at the night light and turning it around in his hand tentatively.

“Right, uh, I was…well, I was actually looking for you. I know that things have been kind of weird lately, but well…it looks like you’re going through a tough time.” He held the night light out to Five. “I wanted to give you this.”

Five stared at him, making no move to take the light. He wondered if he was hallucinating.

“You…what? Why?”

“Diego said you were scared of the dark, so I thought this might help.”

Five’s first reaction was to be offended; he was _not_ scared of the dark, and Diego was going to get a smack upside the head later on for making anyone thing otherwise.

Once Luther’s words caught up to him however, the outrage dissipated, leaving him stunned.

Luther pushed the night light into his hands and Five wrapped his fingers around it automatically. The weight of it was familiar, bringing him the same comfort that he had felt when he’d held it all that time ago in the other dimension. He looked down at the night light, tracing the familiar grooves and craters.

“Thanks, Luther. I appreciate it,” he said, hoping his tone conveyed the genuine rush of gratitude that he was feeling. “This actually means a lot to me. More than you’d know.”

Luther looked pleased, all awkwardness dropping from his demeanor as he straightened. It wasn’t often that he and Five would see eye to eye.

“Yeah, well, I’m the leader,” he said confidently. “I have to look out for you guys; you’re my family.”

Five smiled, touched by the gesture. He recalled the days he had spent in the storage cupboard, remembering that last fight he had had with Luther at the warehouse and wondering whether he would ever get the opportunity to apologize for his cocky attitude.

It turned out he didn’t need to apologize; Luther had already forgiven him.

“You’re right, Luther. We are family,” Five agreed. “And family looks out for each other.”

* * *

That night Five plugged the moon night light in and switched it on, ignoring Diego’s complaints about being too old for a night light. If Diego really minded he would have kicked Five out already, but surprisingly his brother had never once suggested he go back to his own room.

It puzzled Five; they had never been particularly close, but here Diego was letting Five crowd his bed every night despite complaining about Five’s cold feet and his penchant for stealing the blanket.

Five supposed it could be pity, even though the thought made his gut churn.

“Why are you still letting me sleep here?” he asked once they had settled in, letting his curiosity get the better of him.

Diego, who had been playing with the knife he usually kept under his pillow, made a questioning noise.

“You said I shouldn’t make a habit of sleeping here, but you haven’t kicked me out yet,” Five pressed. “Why not?”

A flurry of different emotions crossed Diego’s face, his cheeks flushing with redness. He refused to meet Five’s gaze, instead continuing to play with the knife.

“You’re going to m-m-m-make fun of me,” he grumbled.

“I won’t. I promise.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Diego,” Five said, his voice deadly serious. “I promise I won’t make fun of you.”

Diego seemed to ponder his words for a few seconds, his face becoming even redder. When he finally spoke, his voice was practically a mumble and Five had to strain to hear it.

“I don’t know…just feels like we’re closer than we were b-b-b-before. You were always with Ben and Vanya and you guys did your nerdy thing. Allison and Luther are always keeping secrets between them, and Klaus just kind of hangs out with everybody but mostly Ben. Shit was just kind of lonely before.” He cleared his throat. “Since you’ve been sleeping here, it feels like you actually w-w-want to hang out with me, like we’re friends and not just brothers stuck together because of Dad.”

“Oh.” Five was dumbstruck.

Diego looked as if he immediately regretted ever opening his mouth, his face twisting into an expression of anger before he turned away and glared up at the ceiling.

“W-w-whatever, man. It’s stupid, just go to sleep.”

“It’s not stupid,” Five said. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“Yeah, well, I do. I have feelings too; freaking sue me.”

Five thought back to that afternoon when Luther had given him the night light. It had been such a small gesture, but to Five it had changed everything.

He needed to start looking out for his family; even if it was in baby steps.

“Right…well, since we’re now officially friends,” Five said slowly, watching as Diego blinked in surprise and turned to stare at him. “I guess I should…I guess…”

He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry as a desert. He didn’t know how to even begin; he had never once thought that he would speak of this out loud ever again.

Diego didn’t say anything, waiting for him to speak. Five was grateful for that; any interruption and he might lose his nerve.

“I didn’t time travel…when I left.”

He heard Diego shocked intake of breath, but he powered through.

“Dad was right; it was a total crapshoot and I was completely out of my depth. I miscalculated, _badly_.” He closed his eyes, remembering those first few seconds of darkness and cold as he slipped on the thorny vines. “I landed…in the place between my jumps. Something like a parallel dimension; there was the Academy, and Griddy’s and other familiar places, but no people. Only me and…”

 _Monsters_.

“It was cold and dark and wet all the time, and there was no sunlight. I tried to use my powers to get back, but I was stuck,” he said. His hands curled instinctively, nails digging into the now healed scars where he had cut himself from trying to teleport for hours on end. “I tried to come back, Diego, more than anything. I just…my powers weren’t working, and I couldn’t blink. I swear I wasn’t…in the fucking Bahamas or partying it up or whatever you guys might have thought; I was completely trapped there.”

Five could see it now. The vines on the ground curling around his feet as he sat on the ground, the green glow haloing around his skin.

He was cold and wet from the stinging rain as it drizzled down on him. He was clenching his fists so hard that blood was running down his fingers.

“There weren’t any people there, but I wasn’t alone. There were…monsters and beasts with thousands of teeth and tentacles and claws, all of them out of hunt and kill. They chased me down more times than I can count. Sometimes they caught me. It was never fatal, of course, but there were a lot of close calls.”

He gripped his pajama pants, slowly pulling up the material until it revealed the scarring on his calf from where the monster at Griddy’s had bitten him. It had healed fully after several weeks, but now he had a web of scarring from where the monster’s teeth had nearly ripped his leg apart.

He heard a soft gasp, but the sound was so far away he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it.

“I spent weeks living in a storage cupboard because it was safer than being outside, but fuck if I wasn’t going crazy in there by myself. I was…hallucinating constantly and I thought about you guys all the time, but it just became more and more obvious that I wasn’t going to be able to travel back anytime soon. I was sure I would be there forever, at least until a monster finally ripped me to shreds.”

Dolores was whispering to him as he lay with his arms around her, the cold touch of her skin somehow the warmest thing he was feeling. She was urging him to keep talking, her delicate voice soothing him as he began to shake.

He missed her often and wished he hadn’t been forced to leave her behind in Gimbel’s.

“I couldn’t stay there forever, not if I wanted to stay sane. I found my way back to the Academy eventually and I saw…there was a portal back to this world. It was Ben’s stomach, but the other side. His monster was there guarding it so it wasn’t as easy as just jumping through, but I found a way. I could hear you guys through it, I could hear everything Ben heard.”

His chest was aching, the bite wound burning deep into his skin. He peered through the banisters where he could see the colossal tentacled beast screeching as it reached through the portal.

“One day I fucked up. I got too comfortable and I fucked up. I didn’t…I didn’t realize it until later but it must have heard me, but I was so _stupid_. I just assumed…shit, I thought I was going to die. I was sure of it, and it chased me down the street. I ran back to the portal because I knew I only had that one chance, otherwise I was dead, and I threw myself in…shit, it was so close-”

Five was struggling to catch his breath on every word. He was running, his heart in his throat as he raced down the street. He knew he couldn’t hesitate, he could relax for even a millisecond because it he did, that would be the end of him.

He was the demon horse, screaming and thrashing in the grip of the tentacles as they ripped him apart. He was helpless and small-

“Five. _Five!_ ”

Five gasped, jolting as he realized he was being shaken by someone gripping his shoulders tightly. He blinked frantically, reaching out and curling his hand around the nearest thing he could find, twisting his fingers until he heard a pained hiss.

“Five, _shit_ , just breathe-”

The fog cleared slightly as Five took in a deep breath, as painful as it was, and was suddenly able to make out the form of a wide-eyed Diego in front of him. His hand was twisted around the front of Diego’s shirt, pulling nearly hard enough to choke. 

With great difficulty, he uncurled his fingers. Diego looked visibly relieved, although his neck was reddened with scratch marks. The sight of it sent nausea racing through Five’s gut and he reached out with trembling fingers to touch them.

“Did I hurt you? Your neck-”

Diego made a noise of disbelief. “Jesus, it’s fine, Five. It’s nothing.. Just… you were scaring me. It’s like you were somewhere else.”

“Yeah…” Five breathed, hating how much his voice shook. God, it had felt like he was dying. He reached up to touch his cheeks and grimaced when his fingers came away wet. Diego was kind enough not to mention it, although he did give Five’s shoulders a gentle squeeze as Five quickly wiped away the tears.

“W-w-why did you say you didn’t remember?” Diego asked once they had both calmed down. “You didn’t have to go through this alone.”

Five sighed. “How much do any of us talk about what we go through? How much does Klaus talk about his ghosts or his special training with Dad? How much do you talk about your insecurities around competing with Luther, or your stutter?” Diego flinched, but he didn’t protest. “I just wanted to forget about it. I had hoped that going back to normal would help me move on.”

“Well it’s obviously not working. You’ve been pushing us away and looking like shit, not to mention you haven’t used your powers in weeks. We’ve all noticed. Is it…are you scared of Ben’s m-m-m-monster?”

Five resisted the urge to tense reflexively.

“No,” he lied. “It can’t get me when I’m here. It’s more…the memories. Being in the dark. Feeling helpless.”

He couldn’t do that to Ben. He couldn’t expose him like that. Ben didn’t deserve to be treated like a pariah for something he couldn’t control.

It wasn’t fair for the others to fear him; the monster only wanted Five.

Diego pushed himself up off the bed and reached over Five, pulling open his top drawer and rummaging around until he took out something in a leather cover. Sitting back on the bed, he carefully unwrapped it before pressing it gently into Five’s hand.

It was the knife that Diego had gotten from their mother on their birthday, just before Five had run off.

The name ‘ _Diego_ _’_ was engraved in the side, and when Five looked closer he could see a tiny speck of dried black blood.

“Is this…”

“It’s the knife you gave me when you landed here. I couldn’t figure out how you had a second one that was exactly the same as the one Mom gave me, but I guess it makes sense now if you found it in that…other dimension.” Diego picked up the knife he had been playing with and showed him the identical engraving on the blade. “I don’t need it, so you should have it. I always feel less scared when I have one on me.”

Five grinned, rubbing his thumb over the familiar metal and turning it over in his palm.

“Thanks, Diego. I didn’t tell you, but this thing saved my life,” he admitted. “I would have been dead without it.”

Diego huffed, looking pleased. “All the more reason to keep it with you at all times. Although put it back in its cover; the last thing I need is you trying to stab me in the night during a nightmare.”

“I don’t need to be having a nightmare to want to stab you, Diego,” Five quipped, grinning when Diego shoved him playfully.

“Asshole.”

Despite everything, it did make Five feel a tiny bit better. The knife was puny in comparison to Ben’s monster, but that hadn’t stopped it from saving Five from certain death.

“Could you teach me how to use it?” he asked.

Diego raised his eyebrows. “Wait, seriously?”

“Seriously. I can’t use my powers right now, but I can still make myself useful.”

Reginald’s words about Five being worthless to the Academy had been floating around in his head for several days now. It was true that without his powers, he was considerably less useful during missions, but that didn’t matter to him right now.

There was a monster out there; a monster that was going to kill his brother.

Five wasn’t going to let that happen. He would fight that monster to save Ben, even if ended up a fight to the death.

“Okay, I’ll teach you” Diego said. He put his hand out expectantly. “We start tomorrow. No take backs.”

Five reached down to shake it firmly.

“Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you can't tell I love any opportunity for Five to interact with his brothers and sisters.  
> As always comments are loved and appreciated <3


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